Summer 2023. If the modified community centre timeline comes to fruition, the long-anticipated building will open in two and a half years.
Bowen Island Municipality unveiled the slightly modified project and timeline at the council meeting Monday.
Codes and standards have changed since BIM issued the building permit for the community centre in fall 2018 and the design team had to reacquaint themselves with what had been a project in stasis, council heard.
“There’s been a lot of work rebooting the team and making sure that we’re going to be able to receive the grant funds,” said project manager Sam Collins, “and that this facility will be able to be complete [to] design and then turned into an operating facility.”
The revised design includes adapting the building to step three of the BC Energy Step Code (which BIM adopted in Oct. 2020), COVID-19 considerations in air circulation and space use and enhancing accessibility features. Wider corridors, vestibule modifications and refigurations in the municipal layout are among the changes. The 2018 design didn’t account for municipal staff consolidating under one roof (with the exception of outdoor public works staff) or future growth said a press release. A “very modest increase” in space and considering shared workspaces and work-from-home schedules for the future are among BIM’s solutions.
The perimeter of the building has bulged in places, said Collins. He acknowledged a larger building footprint could affect cost but that this presentation wasn’t asking council for a budget change.
The design review has also included looking for cost savings. CAO Liam Edwards said that they had found almost a million dollars in savings, particularly in the lower public-use (municipal office) spaces. “We’re maintaining the integrity of the project,” said Edwards. “We’re not compromising on the highest public use spaces.”
BIM is expecting the project to go to tender in May (the thought had been they’d go to tender right after the referendum – that didn’t happen) with construction to start in early fall, should the bids come in on budget.
Should the bids come in over budget and require a rescoping of the project, Edwards said in the press release that the project integrity would be maintained. “The functionality of the community spaces, based on established programming needs of the community, will not be compromised.”
The community centre committee is also in the process of calling in pledges for the centre and they’ve so far received the funds of 57 per cent of pledges.
