Airdrie City council heard an update on the much-anticipated multi-use facility and public library on Aug. 15, receiving a status report for the months of June and July.
Christopher Monson, managing principal at Colliers Project Leaders, provided councillors with a project status report, remarking on the exciting progress being made in preparation for the schematic design report to be presented to council next month.
Recent progress includes a sustainability workshop held on June 6 and the project’s first Indigenous engagement session held on June 15.
“There are some really good takeaways from our team that attended those events that council will see in our schematic design report in terms of how we’ve developed all of those opportunities,” Monson said during the meeting, adding the report is slated to be presented to council in September.
Additional progress towards the realization of the facility includes the completion of a geotechnical report presented to Colliers that features two major findings regarding the project, one of which is shallow bedrock at the site of construction.
“Obviously this becomes a bit of a challenge when we’re dealing with things like parkades on how you excavate bedrock,” he said.
He added the second challenge the team will face is a higher water table, but said it is nothing that would be unexpected considering the site's location and proximity to Nose Creek.
In terms of procurement, Monson said Colliers has evaluated and awarded a contract for the role of construction manager to CANA Management, a community-focused property management company based in Calgary, which is another big step forward in the project’s timeline.
“Ultimately, [CANA] will be helping us out with things that we call pre-construction services,” he said. “Which include detailing construction, sequencing and scheduling, and then ultimately they will have the responsibility of being [the] planned contractor when things turn over to construction.”
Monson added in June, Colliers also received council’s endorsements of multi-use tenants, and in terms of next steps, will be working on the development of a demolition package.
“That demolition package will include the demolition of the fire station, it will include the utilities – bringing all the existing utilities back to the property line,” he said. “It will also deal with a storage building located on the west side of the site – that storage building is being relocated.
“Our scope will include the demolition of the foundations that are associated with that building.”
Monson added CANA is also working to procure a more detailed construction schedule for the project.
“We will use that information to understand what the best sequencing plan is in terms of construction activities,” he said.
The project manager said the big development his team will be working toward in the coming weeks is the schematic design package, to be presented to council next month. He said they are on schedule to complete the design by the end of August, with a presentation to council on Sept. 6.
Monson added the baseline budget for the project, which was estimated to be $62,703,550, is still accurate. He said $4,834,821 has been committed to the project to date.
“Once the schematic design is complete coming up at the end of August, CANA construction will be providing us with an updated construction estimate based on that schematic design,” he said.
“So, it will be towards the end of September when we will come to understand that estimate for what the current schematic design will cost.”
In terms of schedule, Monson said the schematic design is being developed a little bit later than what the team had originally intended.
“We’ve been able to work with our design team in order to fast-track some of the future design activities coming up [to stay on schedule],” he added. “We’re planning to make up time during design development and as we get into construction documents.”
