An almost 20-million dollar renovation is being proposed for the Quesnel RCMP building.
The architects reviewed the project with City Council this past week.
Bassem Tawfik, with KMBR Architects Planners, noted that based on staffing the building needed another 213 square meters of space.
He also said that the existing building is quite inefficient because of its triangular shape.
Additions would include an elevator, a new break room and exercise space, a new multi-purpose meeting room, and additional office space.
Other plans would see things like the consolidation of secure storage space, an acoustical upgrade to interview rooms, and a purpose built space for drugs & toxic exhibits which is something they don’t have right now.
Tawfik said that they had an innovative idea to allow for the cell block to be operational during construction, and to avoid he need for a seismic upgrade of the existing building.
“We have come up with an idea to suspend that second floor. We’re going outside with columns, and these columns are going all the way up to the roof of the addition and then suspending the second floor from the top.”
Tawfik was asked about a contingency of more than 4 1/2 million dollars.
“The contingency is whenever you’re working on an existing building and you open something, you always find some surprises that are not always pleasant whether it’s materials that are hazardous, electrical that needs to be replaced, like any home renovation you start thinking it’s going to be $10,000 and you end up at 15. So the contingencies are for unknown conditions that would arise.”
There is also an escalation allowance of $1,048,275.
“Escalation is only the time factor from this point until the tender, the escalation in the market just keeps going, like every year there’s a certain percentage that everything goes up.”
The total cost of the project is estimated at $19,924,830.00.
A referendum to borrow money for the project has been put on hold until after the municipal election in October.
