MEMO / NOTE DE SERVICE

To / Destinataire	OPL Board Facilities Planning Committee
cc:
From / Expéditeur	Richard Stark, Manager, Library Facilities Planning and Development
Subject / Objet	West District Library Project Schedule Briefing Note	Date: October 24, 2012

Background

$10,000,000 was approved in the growth portion of the 2009 capital budget to build the West District Library facility. On November 15, 2010 the OPL Board approved the selection of the existing Beaverbrook Branch site as the preferred location for the new West District Library. On October 17, 2011 the OPL Board awarded the professional architectural services contract to Moriyama and Teshima Architects for this building project.

The site plan approval process began late in June 2012 and proceeded slower than anticipated. The storm water management requirements have been quite challenging on this site due to particularly high rock elevation in some areas and the necessity to coordinate these needs with existing site services. Various options were explored to store the water on site. This resulted in considerable dialogue with City engineers to find a suitable and cost effective alternative. Changes to the site plan and original parking lot layout preserves the treed lot area on the Mlacak site. The resulting underground water retention system will be kept a safe distance from the forested area to protect the trees.

Resolving these requirements resulted in the parking lot construction being delayed until next spring with the full project going to a single tender at that time. Initial construction will be staged so that the parking lot will be completed prior to the general contractor beginning significant work on the building construction. This will minimize the negative impact on available parking to the Mlacak Centre.

The estimated date for completion of this new district branch is now Fall 2014. In response to concerns raised at the October 15, 2012 OPL Board meeting, the proposed project schedule has been revisited and updated.

Analysis and Investigation

Philip Piazza, Senior Project Manager, Architecture, from City Infrastructure Services who has been working on the West District Library Project reviewed the proposed schedule with Moriyama and Teshima to see if opportunities existed to improve the proposed timelines. He also compared this proposed schedule against the Greenboro District Library project which was a new library construction added on to a community centre. The scale and scope of the Greenboro project is similar to the West District.

Greenboro used many similar construction techniques as those being employed in the West District project. It too was an addition to a community centre and it was of similar size and had a nearly identical construction budget. Greenboro was initially scheduled to take 15 months to build but ended up taking 18 months to complete. West District has two additional factors which add to the project’s complexity:

1. Requirement to complete a new parking lot prior to initiating the major part of the construction

2. Potential unknowns from major renovation and/or demolition of the existing Beaverbrook Branch.

Board approval of the construction tender including the parking lot is tentatively planned for the beginning of April 2013. Parking lot construction cannot begin until April 2013 at the earliest, given the high water table levels on this site. Too early a start will impact the successful installation of the parking lot since work would be undertaken on a less-than-firm soil base. This will create risks and potential additional costs at the end of the project if portions of the parking lot required remediation. One of the advantages to a spring start is that the new building will be well under development so that it can be enclosed before winter sets in Q4 of 2013.

Both the Senior Project Manager and the Moriyama & Teshima team feel they have addressed as many issues as possible to keep the schedule as compact and at the same time as realistic, as possible. The result is a 16 month construction schedule to the end of substantial completion.

Project Preliminary Schedule Overview

1. Design Development - Client/partner meetings & review......................................... Completed

2. Contract Documents & detailed drawings commences..................................... October 11, 2012

3. Contract Documents – Client review and submissions .................................................. ongoing

· Also Includes reviews of security, furniture, equipment, civic art, signage, etc.

4. Site Plan Application Approval .................................................................... November 30, 2012

5. Cost Estimate 60% tender Class B.................................................................. December 6, 2012

6. Cost Estimate 100% tender Class A .................................................................... January 7, 2012

7. Building Permit Issued..................................................................................... January 17, 2013

8. Contract Documents completion...................................................................... January 23, 2012

9. Tender and Review commences...................................................................... January 29, 2013

10. Alternate Service Delivery Plan completion by OPL Staff................................... January 31, 2013

11. OPL Board approval of Beaverbrook closure................................................... February 11, 2013

12. Beaverbrook Depot opens ................................................................................ March 18, 2013

13. Beaverbrook Branch closure and move out commences..................................... March 19, 2013

14. Tender closing and recommended contract award............................................. March 28, 2013

15. OPL Board approval of WD contract award (Special Meeting).................................. April 3, 2013

16. Ground Breaking Ceremony................................................................................... April 5, 2013

17. Construction commences (parking & building) 16 months duration.......................... April 8, 2013

18. OPL Board approval of RFID equipment for West District................................ February 10, 2014

19. Substantial Completion of building construction.................................................. August 1, 2014

20. Deficiency Period and Final occupancy.............................................................. August 30, 2014

21. OPL move in / furniture & equipment installation commences..................... September 2, 2014

22. Open to public ............................................................................................... October 15, 2014

Philip Piazza will be in attendance at the Facilities Planning Committee meeting to respond to any questions on the preliminary project schedule.