OLDS — The Operations Centre, now under construction along 70th Avenue, is a great deal, says Scott Chant, the Town Of Olds’s director of operations.
The $10.5 million facility will allow for staff and equipment from three older buildings to be consolidated into one location. It’s expected to be open in late February.
Once the plan to build the facility was announced, it became very controversial, because town officials successfully applied to have the municipality's debt limit increased in order to borrow to fund the project.
During an interview, Chant said the project does total about $10.5 million, but he said that includes a lot of different expenses.
For example, Alberta Environment required the town to clean up and reclaim the sewage treatment plant property in the area where the Operations Centre was going to be located.
“Under Alberta Environment rules, that site had to be reclaimed, no matter what. So even if we did nothing out there, we would have still had to spend that money to reclaim the old sewer treatment plant site,” Chant said.
"We got a good value for the dollar because the company that did the reclamation needed work so they put in a good price on that.
“But as they started digging up the ground, they found that basically, all the treatment plants that had been put in that site over the years – since the mid ‘50s -- were just buried. So they had to reclaim all of that,” he added.
Chant also said the project not only included that reclamation piece but also relocation of a couple of structures, including the old firefighter training facility.
It also includes a stormwater pond (required by Alberta Environment), construction of the Operations Centre building itself, regrading, landscaping, a salt and sand handling facility, and the necessary infrastructure.
Chant said the steel for the project is actually used steel.
It had first been acquired for the old Sunnyside Greenhouses in Cochrane.
"The company that built this building secured it with a mind that they’ll use it some day as a shop for something else for somewhere down the line,” Chant said.
“So that’s why when they put the bid in for us they were able to come in (at) very competitive price for the size of building that we’re going to get because of the frame. Because the steel frame makes up quite a large amount of the budget.”
Chant was asked if the town had any concerns about using used steel versus new steel.
"One part of the criteria that was in the submission, before we would even accept it, they had to have a structural engineer’s report to say it was good to be able to be re-used.
“And so their due diligence was yes, they provided a structural engineer’s report that basically there was nothing wrong with the steel and that it would last for the foreseeable future – for the life of the building,” he said.
Chant said when all those factors are taken into consideration, the Operations Centre project is a good deal for the money spent.
“When you look at the number, yeah, it’s a large number. But we’ve reclaimed the old sewage treatment plant site from the mid ‘50s to current that had to be done under the current Alberta Environment regulations and rules,” he said.
“So it’s not a matter of – oh, well, we picked a number out of the air and we just spent frivolously. There were legislation pieces that we had to do as well, all the way through that as well.”
