The District of Tofino is moving ahead with upgrading Wickaninnish Community School’s field despite the project’s cost skyrocketing past the $1 million dollar mark.
The district recently announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with School District 70 as well as a planned upgrade to the school’s field.
The announcement pegged the district’s budget to upgrade the field at $695,000 and the project was armed with a $623,500 grant from the Provincial Government’s Growing Communities Fund.
The projected upgrades include reorienting the baseball diamonds, widening, levelling and resurfacing the fields as well as new fencing, dugouts and infield materials.
The town’s municipal council held a special meeting on July 10 where they learned their initial cost estimate would barely cover half the project’s actual price tag.
In a presentation to council during that meeting, the district’s Director of Community Services April Froment suggested the school’s baseball diamonds were impacted by the construction of a new childcare facility on the property and that the fields “are in poor condition and questionably safe for play.”
“The field has been historically very well used by the community, perhaps more well used by the community than by the school itself as currently the only facility in the community for baseball, soccer and other field sports,” she said.
The estimated budget the district was playing with however proved well short of reality as the district received three bids for the project with the lowest coming in at $998,800 from Vike Construction. Windley Contracting bid $1.6 million followed by Wilco Civil Inc, which bid $2.6 million.
Froment noted the lowest bid from Vike, was “significantly in excess” of the $695,000 allocated to the project and added the actual cost would come in around $1.4 million after costs around contract administration, environmental considerations and contingency funds were added in.
“The higher tender pricing is, of course, not what any of us are looking for,” she said.
She added that the $695,000 cost estimate was established in February.
“Since that time, as the detailed design progressed, the footprint of the field was increased by approximately 25 per cent, which increased the cost of the project and pushed into an area with quite a bit of bedrock, so some of that cost is related to high rock removal costs,” she said. “The summer construction window may be playing a factor. Often tendering earlier in the New Year, when contractors are lining up their work, can produce better results. This being the summer, it’s late in the year and also the cost of bringing an out of town crew to Tofino is quite high.”
She added that bids coming in so far beyond an initial cost estimate would have killed most projects, but suggested upgrading the school’s fields has been identified as a high priority.
“This is not the news any of us were looking for. It’s not great news for a project to come in this high. I think any other project would typically not move forward at this stage, but knowing the support that this project has had from council and the support the project has had from the community, staff felt compelled to look at options should council want to consider continuing to move forward with the project.”
She suggested the district could find sources to fill in the funding shortfall of $652,580 without dipping into taxation.
She said additional Growing Communities Fund dollars are available with roughly $302,000 currently allocated for an indoor recreation facility.
She added the indoor recreation facility has stalled due to the district’s Green and Inclusive Buildings Fund grant application fort he project being rejected. She said an additional $277,000 could come from the district’s pay parking reserve, which currently has about $578,842 in the bank.
“These two funding sources would fully fund the project,” she said, adding that School District 70 is pitching in $72,000.
She suggested timing is an issue as the construction would need to be well underway before school returns in the fall, otherwise it would cause disruptions to school activities.
Coun. Tom Stere called the gap between the cost estimate and actual tenders “shocking.”
Coun. Duncan McMaster said he was not surprised by the increased costs, suggesting he had felt “$650,000 was a little light when we first looked at it.”
“Knowing that we are going to be spending an exorbitant amount, is there anything we would do in the design, not necessarily to make it cheaper, but to make it better?,” he asked. “If we’re going to spend a lot of money, are we going to get something better if we just spend a little bit more than the lot of money we’re looking at at the moment?..I just don’t want to be doing this and then finding in five years we have to do it all over again.”
Froment responded that better materials could be looked at as well as better upgrades for the ball field amenities, like the dugouts.
“It’s a funny question to propose to spend more money than what is already a large sum, but certainly you can always achieve a better quality,” she said.
McMaster followed up by asking about the project’s timeline.
Froment responded that the Vike team is ready to start right away and that the district is hoping to minimize any impacts on the school year kicking off in September.
She said construction is expected to take roughly 11 weeks, so the project would be substantially completed by Sept. 30, adding though that there are variables around the timeline particularly in regards to weather.
“We did include a provision in the tender for bringing in imported water, if that’s what’s required, if we are in a drought, but certainly grass grows faster in moister weather, so there’s a bit of a moving target there at the end of the project,” she said.
McMaster questioned why the district would cater to the school-year while disrupting the summer’s community usage of the field, noting the community is providing the majority of the funding.
Froment responded the district is hoping to get as much heavy work done outside of the school year as possible.
“Having heavy construction on school grounds is not something the school is going to be terribly enthusiastic about during the school year,” she said. “They have no obligation to have us there on their property doing this work or really even using the field, so we want to make sure that we continue to have a good relationship there.”
Coun. Ali Sawyer asked about the potential for the district to spend over $1 million, but then have its access to the fields cut off by the school and Froment said the district and SD70 are currently hammering out a 15-year agreement for access to the field.
“There’s a level of trust that is required on behalf of both parties. This is sort of a new relationship for us and we’re moving forward very carefully together. That’s probably all I can say about that,” Froment said.
Mayor Dan Law supported moving ahead with the more expensive project, noting there would be no direct increase in taxation thanks to the various funding sources.
“We have very few amenities for recreation and we’ve succeeded with a fantastic MOU so far and a good relationship with the school,” he said.
He added though that he would like to see increased messaging from the district office around pay parking funds helping to pay for the upgrades.
“I do notice that there is perhaps a lack of awareness in the community, at least some aspects of the community and members of the community, of why we’re doing pay parking and where those funds are going,” he said. “This may help with some of the flaunting of pay parking and perhaps misuse of pay parking spaces by residents of the Coast here.”
Council’s vote to approve the upgrades was unanimous.
