Bids for two significant county building projects have come in over budget, prompting county councillors to reconsider their plans.
The projects in question are the new Clyde fire hall and the new chalet at the Tawatinaw ski hill.
“The tender opening was on June 26 and they were higher than anticipated,” said county CAO Edward LeBlanc. “There will be a formal discussion at council.”
Reeve Charles Navratil said the bid to complete the Clyde fire hall came in at roughly $1.6M — close to double the estimated $828,000 cost of the building.
What the county is going to do about the bids will be decided at the July 11 council meeting. Navratil said he is in favour of rejecting all the bids for the fire hall and retendering the project in January. However, it will be up to council to decide what to do.
He added he suspects the county put out the tender for the fire hall at the wrong time, and the floods in southern Alberta had a hand to play in the fact the bid was so high. Although the construction industry won’t say so, he said he believes “people aren’t looking for work right now because they know there’s going to be all kinds of insurance work to do.”
“They would build it for us if they could make a 90 per cent profit or whatever,” said the reeve.
As for the ski chalet, the bid came in “just a touch over what our estimate was,” Navratil said, adding the difference could likely be fixed with some pencil sharpening.
The original estimate for the chalet was $1.75 million.
A new chalet at the ski hill is necessary for the facility to continue to operate, Navratil said.
“We either have to shut the ski hill down in the future or build a new chalet,” he said. “We have no choice. We can’t continue operating that old building.”
The current chalet would have been used this winter regardless of the bids for the new chalet, as the new one would not have been built in time for the 2013-2014 ski season.
