Construction delays continue for the long overdue library and cultural centre.
The building is now scheduled to open Oct. 2—a month later than last reported and nearly three years past its original completion date of December 2012.
This most recent setback is the result of a domino effect caused by continuous delays.
Remediation of the walls, floors and exterior stucco—three projects that were completed improperly and had to be redone—has taken contractors longer than expected, in turn delaying subcontractors that were scheduled to undertake work in the building.
“Then what happens,” explained Mark Fercho, chief administrative officer for the municipality, “is if you have subcontractors booked and you have to delay them, then generally they’re busy working on other projects and they’re not available the following week or the week after. So that’s causing a little bit of an extension to our timeline.”
Fercho, who broke the news to council during the June 9 committee of the whole meeting, said he has spoken with the contractor and there is a possibility the building could be ready for a Culture Days event on Sept. 28.
There wasn’t much enthusiasm from the room, however, as Mayor Richard Ireland asked “what are the chances it will go the other way?”
In December, the municipality released a new timeline detailing each of the remaining projects and when they were expected to be completed. That timeline was agreed upon by the contractors, Stantec and Delnor, and the municipality and became the guiding document to lead the project to its completion.
This marks its second update in six months.
On June 9, Coun. Gilbert Wall, who has expressed endless concerns and frustrations about the project, said, “it is what it is, no amount of verbiage is going to change that.”
However, he did ask Fercho to ensure that all of the inspection protocols and testing protocols are up to code.
“One of my concerns as we move forward with this is what we’re going to get when we get handed the keys,” he said. “We know that the building has gone through many reincarnations of being built and we must get a good building out of this—that’s the only thing we have left.”
The library expansion and renovation project has been wrought with errors and unforeseen issues since construction began in November 2011, causing the budget to increase by a million dollars within the first year of construction and delaying the project by years.
The roof, walls, floors, stairs, windows and mechanical system have all been improperly installed and subsequently redone over the course of the past few years.
Last July, the budget for the centre was again increased to $9 million, with the caveat that it will most likely reach $9.5 million before the project is complete. Currently, that puts the project $1.5 million over its original budget of $7.5 million.
The increases came gradually, with the first million stemming from issues with the old library—a heritage building that, according to federal regulations, must be preserved and maintained as closely to its original form as possible.
From there, everything fell apart, beginning with the mechanical room. Then came the issues with the roof, which resulted in the cedar shakes and shingles being removed to allow for a vapour barrier to be installed.
The walls were next in the long line of construction blunders; they were meant to be left as sealed architectural concrete, but at some point down the line, they were covered with an additional layer of concrete. To rectify the issue, the contractor had to grind the extra layer off the walls.
The most recent string of issues include uneven floors throughout the new building, windows without a proper design and the improper placement of joints for the stairs at the front and back of the building.
Following the project’s completion, the municipality hopes to recover some of its cost overruns during a mediation process that will sort out which party is responsible for each of the overruns and delays.
For example, it has already been determined that the municipality is not liable for the cost of removing and replacing the insufficient roof that was installed in 2013. Those costs—about $250,000—will be borne by the architect (Stantec) and contractor (Delnor), as they were each responsible for a portion of the errors.
Nicole Veerman
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