Balon Construction is now officially no longer the contractor on the Spirit Centre project, in accordance with a Court of Queen’s Bench ruling last Wednesday that allows the town to retake control of the project.
Town of Westlock CAO Darrell Garceau said the ruling means they can now appoint a new contractor to complete the project.
“The project, in essence, is ours to go forward with,” he said.
Balon Construction, initially the main contractor on the project, went into a voluntary receivership last October.
The town announced in early February that it would pursue a court order to terminate its contract with Balon. This comes after the receiver, BDO Canada, laid off some of Balon’s key staff, including staff assigned to the Spirit Centre project.
The decision could mean the project will be over budget and behind schedule, mayor Bruce Lennon said. In terms of the expected cost and timeline of the project, Garceau said it would still be several weeks before any specific figures are known.
The town got five respondents to its request for proposals (RFP) for a general contractor on the project as of the Tuesday deadline. The town’s consultants, Bearden Engineering, were expected to complete a review of the bids and to have an official recommendation prepared for Friday.
A special council meeting is scheduled for today, Feb. 14, to vote on Bearden’s recommendations and appoint a new contractor. Discussion about the bids will be done behind closed doors, as they relate to a legal contract, but any final decision made by council will be known this week.
Garceau emphasized that the new contractor will not be bound by the fixed-price contract the town signed with Balon.
“This isn’t going to be a package like we saw, a stipulated price contract,” he said. “This is for the construction management, then that individual or that company will go out and look to award contracts to complete the project.”
The total price of the project won’t be known until the new construction manager awards the remaining contracts.
“We won’t know for at least six to eight weeks, to give time for that new construction management team to basically negotiate and award those contracts,” Garceau said. “Then we’ll have a really good understanding of what this project will cost.”
Although Lennon said the project could go behind schedule to the point the facility wouldn’t be ready for this coming winter, Garceau was cautiously optimistic.
“We’re still hopeful. It’s still early in the construction season,” he said. “With the award to the new construction management team ... we would be hopeful that they would get contractors (lined up) and award contracts to have this project done this fall.”
