The largest construction workers’ local union in North America is putting up a new headquarters just outside Toronto that will be a far cry from the gritty old-time union halls of the past.

The new LiUNA Local 183 headquarters will replace the building that the union has outgrown as the Greater Toronto Area has prospered. LiUNA stands for Labourers’ International Union of North America and the local is the biggest construction union local on this continent.

Membership has been fuelled by the GTA’s construction boom, which is expected to weather the economic shrinkage caused by COVID-19. (The Building Industry and Land Development Association reports delays to many projects because of the pandemic.) Local 183 represents workers in every area of building and infrastructure construction and has grown from 28,000 members in 2011 to nearly 59,000 members now.

The new headquarters, in Vaughan, Ont., will be as flashy as the current one is, well, boring.

Fittingly, perhaps, the renderings show a postmodern sign near the top of the building identifying it as Liuna! – complete with exclamation mark.

The expansive new digs appear to be necessary, too. Right now, the union is headquartered in a nondescript building near Highway 401. Jason Ottey, Local 183′s director of government relations and communications, says it needs something bigger and better to serve the growing membership.

“We built the current building in 1991, when the membership was around 15,000 people. It’s one of our priorities now to build for future growth. We don’t want to be looking for another building in four or five years,” Mr. Ottey says.

Designed by David Dow, a principal at Toronto-based architectural firm Diamond Schmitt, the new headquarters will be more than 290,000 square feet (nearly 27,000 square metres) – almost three times the area of an average Walmart.

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