Council will be moving forward with the plans build a new Town Hall after approving a motion to use $490,000 in capital dollars to fund design, engineering and geotechnical work associated with the project.
The decision was made at a special council meeting on Oct. 29, which saw council consider the project in relation to the others on their short and long-term priorities lists.
“After a review of the strategic priorities it became pretty clear that most of them have either been accomplished or are in progress,” said Assistant CAO Bill Rogers, who briefed council at the meeting.
“The biggest three that remain in question are what to do with the library, what to do with the FCSS building and what to do about a new town office.”
The list of prioritized projects was created by the current council at a planning retreat in February of 2014. It included items such as replacing the old, deteriorating cast iron water pipes around town, developing a road overlay program, obtaining a regional water line, addressing the lack of seniors housing, expanding the regional airport, building a splash park, and constructing a new Town Hall.
“I am feeling much more comfortable that we have looked back at our strategic planning,” said Coun. John Irwin, who was one of the councillors that asked for the list to be provided.
Many felt they owed it to the residents of Bonnyville to do their due diligence before decided to spend millions on a new town office building.
“I think the program put before us is something that is important, it is necessary,” said Mayor Gene Sobolewksi. “More important is (the new Town Hall) is something that council has had a notion for…for a while now. I know myself, I would like to move forward with the project.”
Council was in agreement with the mayor and eventually decided to give administration the go-ahead to spend $490,000 to hire the architects and engineers to move the designs forward.
The decision was made with the intent on bringing the topic back to the discussion table once tenders were received and a firm price was in front of them.
A design chosen by council has been estimated to cost $8.9 million, a number that has some on council a little weary.
An initial six designs were presented to council back on Aug. 25, which were weeded down and to a top three and developed further.
On Sept. 25 in Calgary council met with representatives from Manasc Isaac Ltd. to see 3-D renderings of their top three designs.
One of the initial three options was a simple one-storey building, which would run along the east side of the property where the current Town Hall parking lot is located. A new parking lot and open plaza would take the place of the current building.
A redeveloped version of this design was created by council and added a partial basement and partial second floor to the full main floor. The second level would be “shelled in” to allow for easy future expansion.
This facility is estimated to cost roughly $6.8 million with the total project cost expected to come in around $8.9 million.
Both council and town administration had a hard time believing that the project would actually cost that much, given the current state of the market.
“I don't know how a Town Hall could be $8.9 million,” said Coun. Ray Prevost. “It is not even going to come close to that, I think.”
Prevost went on to talk about how the newly built RCMP building only cost the Town $6 million and the addition to the Bonnylodge cost under $6.5 million.
The current $8.9 million price tag attached to the design does include an extra $1.04 million (14 per cent) contingency fund, along with estimating on the high side for most other costs.
Five funding options for the Town Hall were debated briefly, before being tabled.
The first option would see the town borrow the funds over a 30-year period. Options two through five would see the town bank on provincial funding with five, ten, 15 or 20-year debentures.
“The plan is not carved in stone,” said CAO Mark Power. “I think what administration is looking at with this plan is to get us to a point where we can see what the building is going to cost. Once it is tendered there is no contingency any more. Then you are dealing with real dollars.”
Once the Town Hall project receives tenders and firm prices it will come back before council where they will make a decision of whether or not to proceed with construction of the building.
