It only exists on paper but already the costs and scope of the proposed community support centre are growing significantly, prompting warnings from administration about it growing too unwieldy to be affordable.
Council on Monday received its latest update on the proposed centre, intended to give a handful of non-profits such as the 50+ Club, Stop Abuse in Families, Youth Community Centre, Community & Information Volunteer Centre, Family and Community Support Services and Further Education a common home.
But already the city is facing cost pressures as the issue of parking could add more than $8 million to the facility’s overall bill. Building 173 parking stalls on a surface lot would cost $1.7 million, bringing the total cost to $17.05 million. But the city’s downtown area redevelopment plan discourages surface parking downtown, calling instead for a parkade structure. Building a parkade could cost as much as $10.5 million, bringing the project cost to $25.6 million. And that cost could grow even more.
“If we build something for parking it would need to be a little broader in scope than just for one facility,” said Chris Jardine, general manager of community and protective services. “That price is a magnitude of cost for that 173 parking stalls.”
Coun. Cam MacKay tried to remove any reference to a parkade-style structure from the project but was voted down.
“It’s stuff like this that is the reason taxes will continue to increase,” MacKay said.
Location will play a significant factor in what kind of parking structure the city will have to build, but at the moment the downtown is the preferred location, with the proposed 38,000 sq. ft. building built on either the present site of the 50-Plus Club or on city-owned land also in the downtown.
“It’s not a hill (all groups) are going to die on,” said Jardine, referring to the desire to build downtown. “Some are very much interested in being downtown. We will have to see if that’s a deal-breaker for some.”
But council decided to expand the scope of the project despite a stern warning from Jardine on making it too large to be realistic. Councillors approved an amendment calling on administration to explore inviting more community groups and building condominiums on top of the centre for seniors’ housing.
“It is easy to blow this up to get to a point where, if it isn’t unwieldy, it is extremely unwieldy,” Jardine said. “My caution to council is you need to focus on your original objective and not on blowing this up.”
But Coun. Cathy Heron said everyone needed to have a say in the centre’s design.
“I just want to make sure, before we build this, that everyone has a chance to make their comments,” Heron said.
And the library wants in as well, if the location is away from the downtown. Director Peter Bailey presented the option to council that it could move the community support centre to another location in the city, build a surface parking lot and also include a 20,000 sq. ft branch library.
But Mayor Nolan Crouse wasn’t enamoured of the suggestion.
“The operating cost (of a branch library) is significant,” Crouse said. “You still have to maintain it, pay for staff and operate it.”
A final concept plan for the facility is due in late 2014.
