The Riverfront Centre is back in the good books after a few hiccups over the winter.
“It’s actually coming in well under budget at this point and we have quite a contingency available,” Trail Mayor Mike Martin told the Trail Times. “We did lose almost two months through the winter period due to a combination of weather and steel (beams) delivery,” he added. “But council chose not to explore any options to accelerate the schedule because that would have come at an increased cost and we did not see a material reason to actually undertake that … we are not playing catch-up, (construction) will be completed by the end of 2017, the move in date is January 2018.”
Trail council is now looking into the fine print of long-term management. At this week’s governance meeting, the group agreed to hire a consultant, already working with the city, to summarize operating costs, such as general maintenance, staffing and the life cycle of equipment.
“So what we are doing is having an engineering company take a very close look at this $8-million facility and provide us with a detailed analysis of the long-term operating costs of this building,” Martin explained. “Whether it’s power, water, cleaning, such as how often the windows have to be cleaned.
“There’s expertise available that can provide us with some very definitive costs,” he added. “We just think now is the time to do good diligence there and have this in front of council as we move forward with future budgets.”
Trail council agreed to hire WSP/MMM Group for the scope of work that in the end, will provide a budget level estimate and will be used to forecast operational costs over a 20 to 30 year conjecture.
The $40,000 study is expected to be presented to Trail in late summer, elements such as housekeeping, operating procedures for electrical, mechanical, and IT equipment as well as annual energy consumption will be explored.
“The total investment in the new building will be in the order of $8 million, and having a detailed operating budget and management operating plan is seen to be very important,” said Chief Administrative Officer David Perehudoff. “Ensuring that ‘proper’ maintenance programs are developed and capturing all aspects along with budgeting for these costs is very important.”
Building oversight is critical not only in terms of day‐to‐day operations but should also recognize the life cycle needs and costs to better control depreciation and plan appropriately for capital projects that will also sustain the building’s useful life, Perehudoff concluded.
“Once the plan is prepared, staff can use it as a framework to undertake any additional planning that may be required including the potential redeployment of operations staff as well as developing various service contracts that will be required, (such as) HVAC, janitorial, elevator, fire hydrants, and fire alarms.”