Good Afternoon Members of the Media,

Today the City of Hamilton is pleased to announce that it has completed its extensive renovation of the Victoria Street public bathrooms to make them safer, more robust and easier to keep clean.

The bathrooms are now officially open to the public, having been closed since spring of last year to allow the renovation work to be carried out.

Gorham’s Management Design was awarded the contract to carry out the works, following the usual Invitation to Tender process, and I wish to commend them for their excellent work…as well as our own City team who worked exceptionally hard to ensure the best installation for this space.

We are really pleased with how this project has turned out.

The Victoria Street bathrooms have historically been a target for vandalism due to the fact they are in an area with high foot traffic. With these new bathrooms, we wanted a design that was more robust and not so easy to damage, which is why we have selected stainless steel fixtures.

Also, something else which makes this design unique is the fact that we have done away with communal bathroom space; the public can now access individual private bathrooms with their own sink and hand dryer. This will increase people’s safety, security and comfort when using the bathrooms.

Our City Engineers also decided to create a pop of colour on the building by using vibrant, uplifting paint colours on each of the bathroom doors which we think has added significant visual interest to the area.

The bathrooms will be the ‘test case’ for future bathroom renovations in the City; if the public like the new concept, we will roll it out in other locations.

As you can see behind me, there are eight individual bathrooms in total – two of which are wheelchair accessible.

And now I will give a brief tour of the bathrooms accompanied by Assistant City Engineer Charles Waters, who was the Project Lead for this initiative.

Thank you.