Ground could be broken for the new Mary J.L. Black Library next week but with some added costs after council approved the contract to build it Monday night.
The approved contract, awarded to Aurora Construction, came in at $4,201,340 but with a contigency allowance of $339,500 and an additional $533,000 to complete the project as originally intended the final price tag is $5,100,000. That’s $990,000 over the orignal $4.1 million estimate. Because a site wasn’t selected when the city applied for the Infrastructure Stimulus Funding, City manager Tim Commisso said the overrun is due to added features never expected in the original estimate. The tight deadline of March 31, 2011 has also added some increases Commisso said.
"It’s because there were elements that were never envisioned under the 4.1 million," any concern of other projects in future worried about construction market. Commisso said. "When there’s a lot of construction it makes for a market with higher prices."
Coun. Larry Hebert pointed out that while there was a lot of tenders anticipated, only four contractors bid on the new facility. Coun. Rob Tuchenhagen worried that city contractors might have reached their limit with the amount of construction in the city.
"It seems like we’re almost at a point of saturation here with how much construction the city can handle," Tuchenhagen said.
With the contract approved, construction can begin on the West Thunder Community Centre site as early as next week.
