It comes as no surprise that the opening date of Powell River Public Library’s new location will be delayed into 2017. Those familiar with the process of public infrastructure construction in this province know that large building projects are notorious for taking longer, and coming in more expensive, than first planned.
What is a shock is that renovations on the new library at Crossroads Village Shopping Centre have not even begun yet.
Seismic upgrades on the approximately 50-year-old building’s foundation are now about 80 per cent complete, but the actual renovation, estimated at six months of work, has not even commenced. With the previously established timelines, that work should have started in March.
All hope of having a new library open this fall has faded and without building permits from the city in the hand of the contractor, Futurevest Investment Corporation, it is difficult to set schedules and deadlines for when the library will be finished.
This presents many logistical problems. How does library staff plan to move tens of thousands of books and other collections when they are not able to make any solid plans of when that will happen? Also, furniture and other interior design elements that were ordered for the original opening date are starting to come in with nowhere to store them.
Neither city staff, the arbiter of the provincial building code and owner of the building, nor Futurevest, the general contractor, are taking responsibility for the delay and instead seem to be blaming each other. This is causing a disconnect between the two parties on how to bring the building plan up to code and finally begin construction.
Where is the sense of cooperation in all of this? Furturevest has gone out of its way to give the city a good deal on the building, so why is city staff not working together with them more to expedite the project?
Considerable work has been done to promote Powell River as a place that is open for business. If the city cannot find a way to issue building permits in a timely fashion, especially on its own buildings, it does not bode well for business development.
The city needs to find a way to balance proceeding with caution with getting things done on established timelines.
Two things are lacking with the library project: cooperation among all parties to make it work and a sense of urgency to get it finished.
Without those two key elements, it is anyone’s guess how long the new library will take to open.
Chris Bolster, reporter
