The Town of Huntsville is facing some costly infrastructure needs—there have been discussions about more space required at Town Hall, a new fire station, an expanded library, and a Madill public works facility expansion or new building.
The Madill public works facility was back before council at the July 24 General Committee meeting.
Frank Palmay of Tulloch Engineering attended the committee meeting remotely with the results of a building condition assessment. He said company representatives conducted interviews with those who use the building and determined “that the existing facility has insufficient space to house all staff. Currently, there are shared offices. All services are not under one roof, and the garage is too small to accommodate the current number of vehicles,” explained Palmay.
He said the building is in significant deterioration, has an inadequate mechanical system, and is not accessible. “By our estimates in 2021/2022, the building requires approximately $5 million in upgrades.” He broke that sum down into $1.5 million in repairs, $0.5 million in AODA upgrades, and $3 million to address the lack of space.
He also gave the council the cost of constructing a new building.
“Through the needs analysis, through interviews with staff and a review of the growth estimate for the Town, it was determined that the new facility should be designed to include 17 offices with 21 workstations, locker rooms, a board room, a training room, a large storage room for the mechanics, a wash bay, a mechanics bay and ten double bays to accommodate all of the current and future vehicles,” said Palmay. “The estimated project cost can be broken down for the office, approximately $3 million in construction; the garage, $7 million with one million in design fees and one million dollars in contingency, for a total budget of $12 million.”
A similar presentation was made in 2022, at the time the cost of replacing the Madhill building was estimated at $8.34 million. See that story HERE.
Councillor Monty Clouthier asked whether building a new public works building in that location made sense. Palmay deferred to the Town’s Director of Operations, Randy Bissonette. “I would say currently it probably is the best place right now… because we’re definitely looking for a sand dome also, and that would be a location for that as opposed to doing four different sand domes. That means you need four different loaders, and so I think right now [that] would be the spot,” said Bissonette.
Clouthier said he wants to make sure that if it goes ahead, it’s in the right location and that “in the future… people aren’t going to say, well, why did we build it there?”
Prompted by a question from Huntsville Deputy Mayor Dan Armour, Palmay said the $12 million new construction estimate is in 2024 dollars.
Councillor Helena Renwick wanted to know if the municipality spends $5 million on repairs and upgrades and whether adding to the building in the future would be possible. Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock also wanted to know whether a phased approach to upgrading the building would be possible or whether it would be an inefficient way to tackle it. “It generally is an inefficient way of tackling it. Doing bits and pieces, you’re doubling the work as you go along, so you’re going to have more mobilization costs and get overhead costs for bringing contractors back several times, and again, things aren’t getting cheaper day to day so if we push it off five years that $12 million is going to end up being $15-$20 million,” said Palmay.
Alcock wanted to know whether spending $5 million would cover most of the issues. Palmay said: “It’ll be difficult for that $5 million to get the board rooms, the training rooms, the locker rooms, and, you know, all the bays required as well. Still, it’ll address some of the needs and might address today’s needs, but you’re not going to be addressing future growth needs.”
Armour said he likes the idea that it’ll accommodate some functions that currently occur at Town Hall and could open up space there. He asked how big a new building would be. Palmay said it would be about 35,000 square feet.
Councillor Dione Schumacher wanted to know whether building such a building would, in fact, free up the bottom level at Town Hall being used by staff, “or are we going to need that amount of space here even if we get the office space we need over there?”
Huntsville CAO Denise Corry said the reason for the presentation was “to close a loop in an RFP process that Tulloch was supposed to report back,” she said. “As committee will recall, we do have a team of staff that are looking at the overall infrastructure that’s required for the Town of Huntsville. That includes the library, the fire hall, Madill. So this process is simply to say ‘closing the loop out’. This is the information that was prepared by Tulloch; this is what we see today. We are having ongoing discussions with staff about whether or not satellite offices make sense, so today is certainly not seeking a decision,” she said. “Today is simply reporting back: this is the information and an opportunity for questions, absolutely, but [I] just wanted the committee to know that we weren’t expecting any type of support or approval today.”
You can find Tulloch’s presentation to council HERE (pdf).
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One million? Wait til you see the amount MAHC will spend on consultants and design fees to build our new hospitals!
1 million in design fees ? ???It’s a 35,000 square foot building not a new Taj Mahal !