The George Street Parkade is $9.89 million over budget according to a report to Prince George City Council.
The capital project is now at $22.5 million and counting after originally being billed at $12.6 million.
Concerns were raised by Council at its August 31 meeting, when it was discovered the parkade had cost a total of $17.9 million and was still under construction.
After heavy discussion, a motion was put forward by Councilor Brian Skakun requesting city staff return to Council with a full cost breakdown.
The report, scheduled to go before Council tomorrow (Monday) evening, details a number of reasons for the cost overruns, including altering the design to maximize surface coverage.
This resulted in an increase of $1,520,343.30, increasing the underground stalls to 289 and decreasing the surface stalls to 62.
Meanwhile, the project also encountered ‘unforeseen items’ that were not typical of a parkade construction, the report adds.
The items required the Parkade build to be in two phases and consisted of:
- Relocating private utilities and the major fibre optic cable in 6th Avenue
- Tanking of the foundation, including a raft slab, and utilizing sheet piles instead of shotcrete
- Additional dewatering of the site to enable pouring of the foundation (pumping approximately 250,000 gallons per day for six months in 2018 – 19)
- Removal of numerous underground foundations, oil tanks, upgraded overhead doors, and an upgraded generator
These items increased the cost by another $2,321,708.55.
U.S. tariffs also played a role in the overspending, as well as a volatile construction market coupled with a shortage of skilled labour, and an increase in construction costs.
This amounted to an additional overrun of $2,947,334.97.
An updated cost estimate of $20 million, based on the new design, was provided by the developer in July of 2018.
Administration confirmed with the Developer that the City wished to proceed with the Parkade.
In September 2019 a further price estimate of $ 22.5 million was provided to the city by the developer, based on tender prices for mechanical, electrical, and membrane roofing.
Meanwhile, in November 2019, the finance and audit committee received a report on significant capital projects, which contained the George Street Parkade construction costs, showing the total at $16,372,186.
The cost of the parkade was noticed by Council at the August 31 meeting, and the request for a spending breakdown was made to city staff.
After hearing that now-former City Manager Kathleen Soltis had approved the additional spending under delegated authority, financial guidelines were changed to limit the number of funds that could be approved by the manager before needing Council approval.
Soltis eventually parted ways with the city in September.
On November 23, the city manager’s capital budget transfer approval was reduced to the lower of five percent of the capital project budget, or $100,000 per project.
The reduction means city staff now have to gain council approval for capital project spending that is over that amount.
