Through the roof

The Town of Labrador City will have to come up with another $327,000 if the arena is to get a new roof this summer.

A consultant's estimate pegged the cost of the new roof to be in the vicinity of $750,000 a year and a half ago, when a cost-sharing opportunity arose that would see the Town only have to put up 30 per cent of the cost.

"We were approached by ACOA and the Province for projects that fell under the Recreation Initiative Program as part of the stimulus package in response to the economic recession," Jeff Boland, town manager explained how the Town jumped at the opportunity. "The arena roof was one of the jobs that had been on our slate of work to be done for a while, so we had our engineering consultant do a preliminary estimate of the cost of doing the project so we could apply for funding, which we did, and were approved.

Intensive project

The town manager said he appreciated the scope of the work involved in the project and when the consultant presented an estimate of $750,000, Boland wasn't alarmed.

"It's a bigger job than a lot of people might think," he said of replacing the roof. "Right now the roof is what they call a standing-seam metal roof, ribbed metal roof, and it leaks in a lot of places. What the contractor would have to do, essentially, is take off the existing metal sheeting that's on the roof, remove all the insulation on the underside of it and put that decking back on again, then install a new bitchumen roof (it's identical to what the library did with their roof). What else has to be done, once the insulation is taken off the underside, the underside of the metal deck then has to be cleaned and if there are any spots of rust, they need to be prepared and cleaned. The underside then has to be painted, the joists and that have to be cleaned and painted."

Expected an increase

When the Town put the job to tender, Boland expected the figures would probably run higher than the consultant estimated.

"In all fairness, that estimate was done a year and a half ago," he pointed out. "I figured given inflation and the fact that we are in a mini boom here right now, you expect the prices to inflate some, mayBE up to $850 (K) or so at tops."

But when the tenders closed May 27, two companies submitted a bid with numbers that shocked the town manager.

Colby Management entered a bid of close to $1.5 million and Bluebird Investments (the successful bidder) will do the job for close to $1.1 million.

The lowest bidder still had the Town reeling with an overrun of $327,000.

"Council was totally shocked to see the results of the tender," exclaimed Mayor Janice Barnes. "We had budgeted $750,000 based on the estimates provided by our engineering consultant -we had expected it to go up somewhat, but we were completely taken back with these results."

She pointed out that the lowest bid coming in 44 per cent higher than the estimate was something Council didn't see coming.

"There was no way we could have predicted those kinds of numbers," she said of the lofty bids. "But we do have a plan."

A solution

Municipal taxpayers won't be burdened with covering the huge overrun as the Town hopes to obtain the funding from monies left over in its multi-year capital works program.

"We had money left from 2009," Boland said of the cost-sharing program with the provincial and federal governments. "There is about $370,000 we didn't spend because work planned came in less than we thought. So, we are asking the minister of municipal affairs if we can use that money to go towards the cost of the roof."

The town manager said he is hopeful the money will be assigned to the roof project but the final word will come from Minister Dianne Whalen.

When all is said and done, and goes the way the Town is hoping, taxpayers will have to cover $340,000 as its share of the expense.

In the meantime, the town manager said getting this project up and running in a timely manner is very important

"Timeliness is a big thing here," he said. "That work has to be done before we can put the ice on the arena this fall. I am not sure, but I am thinking, there's a month's work involved. For us, this is a very important project because we have so many issues with leaks over the ice surface, leaks in offices upstairs. It's something that has been on our books for awhile and knowing how expensive it was, we certainly jumped at the opportunity when the 30-cent dollars came along."