By Jason Luciw - Kelowna Capital News Published: October 25, 2008
Westside council has cooled a political hot potato just before the Nov. 15 municipal election. Construction of the $9.4 million Westside RCMP detachment will be delayed, likely until next spring. And, over the next several weeks, the project will be reviewed and retendered. Council is betting that construction prices will go down between now and then, given the softening economy and the cooling of the construction market. Director of development services Dave Slobodan said the delay will hopefully play in Westside’s favour. “A lot of the bigger firms, that normally would be looking at bigger works, may be wanting smaller works and a $9 million project may be of interest to them.” However, the hope of lower future construction costs wasn’t council’s only reason for delaying the project. It continued to express concerns about the stipulated-price contracts that had been secured. Plus, it was uncomfortable with the marginal contingency fund that had been set aside.
Vancouver-based Omicron, the building’s architect and the company hired to get fixed prices for the project, had only tendered 90 per cent of the work, leaving 10 per cent of the costs uncertain. Plus, 43 per cent of the subcontractors were not bonded. So, if one of those companies had cash flow problems and walked away from the job, their work would have to be put back out to tender. A subsequent tender could potentially come back at a higher cost and quickly eat up what little contingency had been set aside, noted Coun. Duane Ophus.The contingency was set at just under three per cent. Council said it would have felt more comfortable with five per cent.
No comments:
Post a Comment