SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Past patrons of the Gallery will have until next year to bid farewell to the former home of one of the city's most popular bars.

While the Gallery currently looks faded and abandoned, it used to be the life of downtown Yellowknife back in its heyday. The building is slated for demolition in 2010. A new five-storey office space will be built in its place. - Lauren McKeon/NNSL photo

The building is slated for demolition in 2010 by Toronto-based owner Dundee Real Estate Investment Trust to make way for a new five-storey office building.

The 50,000 square-foot building will house 300 federal Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) employees who currently work out of three separate Yellowknife offices.

Early construction costs are estimated at $20 million, according to Dundee.

Yellowknife Mayor Gord Van Tighem said the new building is welcome news for the city.

"Definitely the Gallery building has been vacant for a period of time and it has been planned for redevelopment since about 1987 - so it's a good thing," he said.

Van Tighem added that while the Gallery "used to be a very active place" where "a lot of people have a lot of fond memories" the site hasn't been used for much lately.

Dundee purchased the Gallery site as part of a larger acquisition in 2006, when it bought out Princeton Development and, along with it, well-known Yellowknife company Bellanca Developments Ltd.

As part of the $97.1 million deal, Dundee acquired four of the city's prime office spaces: Northwest Tower, the Precambrian Building, the Scotia Centre and the Bellanca Building.

But until Public Works Canada put out a tender for a new INAC office the company hadn't yet decided what it would do with the dilapidated Gallery site.

"Our two choices were either retail or office and we hadn't decided ... which way we were going to go," said Sidney Waskiewich, Dundee's senior leasing manager in Western Canada.

The INAC proposed building was a great fit for the company.

The federal government "is a large and very important tenant to Dundee. We've got them in a number of buildings right across the country," said Waskiewich.

INAC won't be occupying the building any time soon, however.

The final design is yet to be cemented and Dundee still has to apply for a development permit with the city - at which time Yellowknifers will have the usual opportunity to view design plans.

"We're still in the design phase of the project ... as to the exterior of the building, what it's going to look like, that's still yet to be determined," said Waskiewich.

Van Tighem added he doesn't anticipate Dundee will have any big problems obtaining a development permit, saying the proposed building is "compliant with the area it's in."

Not only that, the new building is set to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification, a green building rating system in Canada.

The building is "a very energy efficient, very high order addition to downtown Yellowknife," said Van Tighem.

The project is set to be completed by December 2011. In the meantime, Yellowknifers might see Dundee employees in and around the Gallery starting to clear out the building.