Nova ScotiaA spokesperson says major repairs to Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s city hall in downtown Sydney, N.S., are on hold until next spring, because some materials needed to replace the aging heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system might not be available.Planned closure to fix aging HVAC system postponed until spring due to supply chain issuesTom Ayers · CBC News · Posted: Oct 09, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours agoCape Breton Regional Municipality’s city hall in downtown Sydney, N.S., had been slated to close this month for repairs to the HVAC system, but that project is now on hold till the spring. (Tom Ayers/CBC)Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s city hall won’t be closing temporarily after all.CBRM had been planning to close the building in downtown Sydney, N.S., for six weeks starting this month to fix the aging heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system.That would have meant staff working from home or other municipal buildings, relocating the customer service centre where people can pay tax and utility bills, and disrupting regularly scheduled council meetings.On Wednesday, spokesperson Christina Lamey said the repair work has been postponed until next spring. She said supply chain issues might “put us in a situation where we might begin construction and then not have the materials needed to finish it on the timeline we were looking at.”Lamey said two new large HVAC units for the roof are ready, but there was some question about the availability of some metal fabrication materials and with no guarantee they could arrive on time, it was decided to put the project on hold.”It could have played out positively, but everything would have to go right for that to happen, so I think they erred on the side of caution with it and are doing a more as-brief-as-possible planned shutdown when all of the materials are in place,” she said.CBRM spokesperson Christina Lamey says putting the work off until spring will allow the project to go ahead without interruption, possibly taking less time. (Tom Ayers/CBC)”When you’re in that scenario … you’re looking at shutting down the city hall building, disrupting a lot of workers and a lot of the public for a construction project that we didn’t really have a clear timeline on when it could end.”But postponing the construction project to a later time and ensuring all the needed materials are in place, we’ll be able to have a shorter, more efficient shutdown when it comes.”Council has been told since the summer of 2024 that the 50-year-old HVAC system is in “critical condition” and that if it fails, the building will have to be evacuated.Lamey said if the HVAC system quits working between now and the spring, much of the planning for the building closure has already been done.Council schedule changesIn the meantime, the rescheduling has had an impact on this month’s council meetings.Council normally meets as committee of the whole on the first Tuesday of each month, with a council meeting a week later to ratify decisions from the committee meeting.However, CBRM did not post an agenda for Tuesday’s meeting on its website this week, as it usually does, and gave no indication why the meeting was not being held.Lamey said because municipal staff had planned to close the building, staff and council members rearranged their schedules to meet later in the month.”With the circumstance around the building closure that we were very much expecting to occur, some meetings were changed and we had to keep them where they were, because of everybody making alternate arrangements to fit those new dates,” Lamey said.Council would normally meet this month on Oct. 7 and 14. Those meetings are now scheduled for Oct. 14 and 21.MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORTom Ayers has been a reporter and editor for 39 years. He has spent the last 21 covering Cape Breton and Nova Scotia stories. You can reach him at tom.ayers@cbc.ca.
CBRM city hall unexpectedly open for business as usual
