Work on the new Tawatinaw ski chalet is set to begin after Westlock County councillors did some cost cutting.
At the Aug. 13 council meeting, BRZ Partnership Architecture Inc. architect Hank Brzezinski, whose company is overseeing the plans for the new chalet, sat down with councillors to discuss a list of potential changes that could trim the cost of the new building.
In the end, councillors trimmed nearly $67,000 from the multi-million dollar project, which had an original price tag of $1.89 million. With the reductions, the new cost is projected to be close to $1.82 million.
“It isn’t much, but it is money,” said reeve Charles Navratil, explaining why councillors spent time trimming only 3.5 per cent from the chalet’s cost.
The county could have saved another $42,000 if the roof was changed from the planned metal roof to one covered in asphalt shingles, but the benefits of the metal roof outweighed the potential savings.
“It’s better fire proof,” Navratil said. “Up there there’s no fire protection and you hit a wildfire and most of the time quite often the fire starts on the roof.”
Among the changes made to the plans, the savings come from a variety of alterations.
The biggest saving comes from changing the windows from wood clad to PVC, at a reduction of $19,100.
Changing the roof to a gable style produces a $13,500 saving, while swapping out a custom range hood and using an off-the-shelf model will cut the chalet’s cost by $5,300.
Navratil said the cost-cutting exercise was just an extra step in the process, and ultimately had no impact on the decision to build the new chalet.
“We were going ahead with it no matter what,” he said. “We were just trying to see if we could come up with some savings on it.”
With the changes made and approved, Navratil said work on the chalet can get started.
He expects pilings will be driven this fall, providing a foundation on which full construction can take place.
The building will not be ready for the start of the 2013-2014 ski season, he said. The hope is there will be no hiccups during construction, and the chalet will be ready for the 2014-2015 season instead.
