The expansion of the Estevan Police Service’s building is moving forward.
The Estevan board of police commisioners has approved a $2,159,000 tender from Quorex Construction.
The bid came above the budgeted amount of $1.5 million, so the overage had to go before city council for approval at Monday night's meeting. Council approved the amount.
Mayor Roy Ludwig noted at the meeting that the work has been trimmed to about $2 million. Council will be seeking $1 million from the provincial government’s recently-announced stimulus package to ease the city’s burden for this project.
Council spent about 20 minutes debating the issue during the open portion of the meeting, covering such topics as ways to reduce the costs, to getting local contractors involved, to the condition of the current building.
A building committee has been struck to discuss the project and to look at how to lower costs.
“The building committee has spent literally hours and hours and hours just on this, on awarding this tender, and that’s why we took our time,” said Ludwig. “We wanted to make sure we cross ts and dot I’s.”
Ludwig believes that if anyone takes a tour of the police station, they would see how much the expansion is needed. Members of council echoed Ludwig’s statement.
“The room that really just stuck with me was a room where some of the vulnerable victims go to,” said Councillor Shelly Veroba. “It’s very small, and to have to be interviewed in that room or to give your statement in that room, I thought that was one of many items in the police stations that need to be enhanced.”
She also cited concern with the filing system that requires more space and the lab.
Other members of council shared their experiences with the design of the building, with Councillor Greg Hoffort calling the building’s design “dysfunctional.”
Councillor Trevor Knibbs cited a conversation with an unnamed member of council, who pointed out that in the last few years, the fire department has moved into a new building, and the police station will be expanded, all for less than $5 million.
“When you put that into perspective, I’m even more in favour,” Knibbs said. “I think we’ve done a great job getting two new facilities. You see police stations getting built all over the country for $17 million to $20 million.”
Quorex was awarded the bid even though they weren’t the lowest bid. That was local company B&S Construction Ltd., whose bid came in at $1,847,127. B&S called for the work to be completed in 7 1/2 months, while Quorex projects a seven-month project.
A total of nine bids were received for the expansion, and a 10th came in late. All were above the city’s budgeted figure.
Ludwig pointed out that for large projects such as the renovation, the city uses a system called the best value tender agreement. The cost of the project accounts for the majority of the value at 60 per cent, but also receiving weight in this case were COR certification, experience with previous similar projects and completion time.
According to Ray Gosselin Architect Ltd., who is the architect for the project, B&S didn’t have a letter of surety.
Ludwig said that if council were to have looked strictly at the cost of the bid, and ignored the other factors, Quorex could have sued the city under the terms of the New West Partnership Trade Agreement, which includes Saskatchewan and the other Western Canadian provinces, or the Canadian Free Trade Agreement.
“In both those agreements, they very clearly state that we can’t give preference to local, so even though the local was lower, we go with what we call the best value tender agreement,” said Ludwig.
The mayor pointed out that the architect has a lot of experience with these projects, and Quorax has experience with projects such as police stations.
After the police board announced its decision to go with Quorex on Monday afternoon, many people criticized the decision, saying the project should go to a local firm.
Police Chief Paul Ladouceur says he has received a written correspondence from Quorex that he believes should alleviate some concerns.
“We intend to post an ad for local labour within the community,” the correspondence said. “Should qualified candidates be available, Quorex Construction is willing to hire individuals, as required, to complete work scopes.”
Quorex has previously used local contractors within the community, he said, and if competitive pricing is received, local materials will be sourced for the project.
Councillor Lyle Yanish wants to know if there’s a way to ensure that the cost of the project comes in at $2 million instead of $2.5 million. Ladoucuer suggested negotiating a fixed price before going ahead with the project.
The expansion of the police building has been discussed extensively in recent years. A study in September 2018 recommended the construction of a new police station, but council rejected it due to the high costs.
The expansion is expected to be 5,000 square feet, and expand the police station’s size by about 50 per cent.
Ladouceur said construction is scheduled to start in the very near future.
“Obviously there will be some time that Quorex needs to discuss work with their contractors and things like that, so there will be a bit of time there, but the idea is to initiate construction sooner rather than later, with the hopes of being completed by the end of this year, or very early next year.”
The expansion will give the EPS additional office space and room for files.
“The file room is quite congested. In fact, we had to remove some ceiling tiles just to fit some of the files in there, and so it’s a very narrow room that’s overloaded. We’ve moved files into several different rooms in the basement just to try to make storage for them.”
There are minor renovations that the EPS would like to do with the existing building as well, such as a public washroom and security upgrades to provide interview rooms right off of the front lobby, but those will happen over time, and Ladouceur said those would be coming from the building maintenance budget.
