Town hall upgrades a multi-million dollar project

Mayor Ames Leslie said following the meeting the rough cost for the building upgrades wasn’t unexpected.

He added council received strong public support for ensuring the town hall building itself is preserved.

“The $4 million seems a bit high, but the original report to do this whole building including the opera house upstairs was anywhere from $7 million to $10 million, that included doing right from the basement up,” said the mayor.

“The $4 million is not really a surprise because that was kind of the ballpark number that was being thrown out in 2012, to do the portion to support that there as well. Ultimately, before we can do anything upstairs we would have to look into an investment to re-do the rest of the building. Today the town is growing, so is the amount of staff employees we have in the town hall. The way the layout of this facility is it’s not conducive to proficient work,” added Leslie.

The town requested the assessment by JC Kenyon Engineering Inc. as part of its strategic plan to ensure the infrastructure is both safe and sustainable for the next 40 years.

The town will need to develop a prioritized rehabilitation plan for the building, to improve both the structure’s exterior and interior work.

The plan includes the option to possibly use the upper level space for an opera house/theatre, which would mean doubling the weight capacity from 50 lbs. to 100 lbs. per square foot. The town would need to anchor the north and south walls as part of this work.

Enns-Wind said the independent committee promoting an opera house for the upper floor space has indicated a while ago the upper floor isn’t up to standard to accommodate a large number of people if the proposed opera house proceeds.

The firm provided an initial analysis after making a visual inspection.

The CAO pointed out JC Kenyon Engineering indicated the brick masonry needs work, noting there’s “considerable amount of deterioration” in the form of surface erosion, and some surface cracking. The building also has some damaged to its brick work as a result of dry mortar which needs to be fixed – an expensive project.

As the CAO recommended in his report, the town has already looked after a few items in the report by diverting sprinklers away from the building. And this week it planned to install a timber column below the main entrance stairs where a column had previously been removed. It will also look at some other work to fix cracks in the building cornice.

Some of the work in the report needs to be done anyway, so the building upgrade work needs to proceed.

“That’s why I asked what is critical and what are the things that have been identified as what we need to do today five or 10 years down the road,” said Leslie. “Administration said that report is still coming. That will be something council will have to discuss through this to where we start. Do we piece-meal it through or do we invest the $4 million at once and do everything at once.”

Next, the town is waiting to see the full report on the in-depth recommendations of timelines, the formal estimated cost and what needs to be addressed first. The report is expected in the next two to four weeks.

“It’s a potential cost of what it may be if all identified areas were to be addressed,” said Leslie. “It’s not fully known. We still have another report to go as to what other aspects may need to be changed or addressed. It’s a large pie in the sky ballpark figure as to what it may be.”

He said there would need to be some consultation, to see what the public wants related to a future use of the upper level in particular.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow

by Angela Brown

Town hall upgrades a multi-million dollar project

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