Despite a lack of handouts detailing the figures for the new Library/Civic Complex there is enough evidence that suggest that there are errors in the costs presented to Council and that will be presented to the Library Meeting on Nov 21 in Kelowna ( Presentation by Architect of Revised Plans and Costing - CEI and Diamond/Schmidt) in the form of a power point presentation.
My notes as well as other people I have contacted that were at the meeting indicate that there will be 54 parking stalls at an average cost of $55,726 per stall. Where did the new architects come up with this figure?
Well I have a picture of one of the slides from this presentation showing the historical costing of the original proposal that shows a total of $28,917,051 and that there would be 96 stalls at an average cost of $55,726. It appears that the new architects accepted this historical per stall cost and used it to cost out their new design. It looks like they cribbed their historical figures from referring to the original proposal. They then used those that were still part of the new design concept.
But when we go back to the original proposal that was used to try to get a government grant in January 2007 and was later part of the handout at the Public Meeting prior to the counter petition opportunity we see the following on Page 3:
"The Library requirements for parking are based on area with (1) stall for every 400 square feet. Base on this calculation, staff parking, and accessible parking, the requirement for parking is 100 stalls. In addition approximately 60 existing surface parking spaces being relocated to below grade parking." Indeed on Page 6 we see Figure 5: Parking Level 01 shows parking for 96 cars. (77 standard and 19 small car). There is no schematic drawing of Parking level 02.
In Appendix A we see that the total cost for the 2 levels of Parking is $5,350,767 and we later learn from figures presented to Council on June 10, 2007 that this is for 96 stalls on level 1 and an additional 48 on level 2. This is a total of 144 stalls and brings the average cost/stall to $37,158.
Indeed we see in this presentation to Council on June 10 /07 that the finance manager has costed out each level of parking with $3,627,580 for 96 pots ($37,787 per spot) on L1 and $1,722,000 for 48 spots ($35,875 per spot) Total of $5,349,580 for 144 spots ($37,150 per stall) It appears that the small difference between the two calculations per parking stall of $8 per stall is due to rounding errors etc. when you use spreadsheet computer programs.
But how did the new Architects arrive at their figure of $55,726. Well junior woodchucks* they screwed up. They took the total cost of $5,349,580 and divided it in error by only the 96 stalls from L1 and came up with an average cost of $55,724. (missing $2 is rounding errors)
What is effect of this error?
If there are to be only 54 parking spots but the average cost per spot s/b $37150 and they have used $55,726 then we have an overestimation of $18,576 per stall. This would mean 54 x 18,576 = $1,003,104.
Hopefully the presentation in Kelowna next Wednesday at the Library Board will correct this overestimation error.
Then we can examine the Cost per parking stall of $24,540 (8,000,000/326) for the recently completed construction of a new 326-stall parkade at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) After all even the lower original figure of $37, 150 is 50% over the costs of the Kelowna Construction ?
Another Valid comparison is the 2007 River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond's 1200 stall Parkade cost is expected to be approximately $33 million. 33,000,000/ 1200 = $27,500 per stall
When the actual figures come out in written form to the public I will be closely checking for any other errors.
*Junior woodchucks was a term that an old Accounting Professor used to call his first year students in Cost Accounting 101.
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