ROCANVILLE — The Rocanville pool refurbishment project is at a standstill, and the Pool Refurbishment Committee is looking at other options after a second call for tenders for the main contract resulted in only one bid coming in at over $4.9 million—far more than the committee was planning to pay for the project.
The Pool Refurbishment Committee held a public meeting at the Nutrien Rocanville Community Hall on Tuesday to provide an update on the project. Around 50 people attended the meeting. Rocanville Pool Refurbishment Committee Chair Steve Fortney gave a presentation on the steps that have been taken on the project to date, resulting in the project being stalled while the committee looks at other options. Those options were also presented at the meeting.
After being approved for an ICIP grant for $1,269,782 for the refurbishment, the town put out their first call for tenders in 2021, with the low bid coming in at $3.645 million, bringing the total price for the project with engineering and taxes to $4.046 million. With the town expecting a total price of $2.34 million for the project, a decision was made to hold a referendum asking residents if they wanted to move forward with the project in light of the higher-than-expected cost.
That referendum resulted in a yes vote, but provincial law requires a two-month process to conduct a referendum, and during those two months, the initial bids expired, so the town asked for updated bids.
The bid increased appreciably from $3.645 to $4.239 million, with the contractor citing increased costs and Covid for the increase, bringing the total cost of the project to $4.676 million.
“Given the unexpected cost increase of $630,000, the project was paused,” says Fortney.
The low bidder was served notice that the project was to be retendered, and the pool board reviewed the project and found several efficiencies and worked with their engineer to update the project drawings, before putting out a second call for tenders.
However, that second call for tenders did not go as hoped. Tenders were released in March 2023 and closed in April 2023. The result was only one bidder for the main contract coming in at $4.939 million, resulting in a total project cost of $6.693 million after factoring in the cost of demolition—which the town decided to take on itself—extra costs, engineering, taxes, and a contingency.
“This was more than $2.3 million above what the board was expecting and the main contract was more than $1.29 million above the original bid, which involved significantly more work,” Fortney told the crowd at the meeting.
The Rocanville Pool Refurbishment Committee made the decision not to accept the tender for the main contract, and to look at other options.
Other options
Fortney outlined several options that the Rocanville Pool Refurbishment Committee has been looking at.
One option would be building an outdoor pool instead of an indoor pool, however, the committee pointed out that they would likely lose the $1.29 million grant, and that a significant proportion of their revenue comes from the town having an indoor pool as people can book lessons and courses during the colder months. They also pointed out that demolition would still need to take place, as well as replacing the pool liner, bathrooms, mechanical/electrical rooms, and lifeguard room.
A second option would be to reuse the current building, however, the committee also felt this would likely result in losing most of the $1.29 million grant, and the town’s engineering firm recommended that the current building not be used any more as per a 2018 assessment. This option would also require hiring a second engineering firm and doing some major modifications on the existing building, concrete piles and foundation. The committee noted that costs for this project would be difficult to determine with a significant risk of going over budget.
The third option that the committee presented at the meeting was moving forward with the refurbishment project with the town acting as the general contractor. Fortney pointed out that this would reduce the double markup—once from the subcontractor and a second markup from the general contractor. It was also pointed out that this would allow for total flexibility on the schedule of the project and changes. However, the town would take on more risk.
If the town were to act as general contractor, each portion of the project would be tendered separately. This would lengthen the project, meaning the pool would likely not be open in 2024 and may not be ready until 2025.
Fortney said the committee felt that they could likely extend the grant for the refurbishment, however, were unsure.
Reaction and moving forward
The majority of questions from the floor after the presentation were about what would happen if the town were to act as a general contractor. One resident pointed out that it may not be feasible for a town the size of Rocanville to build an indoor pool, but the majority of people seemed to think the town needed to find some way forward with the project.
Rocanville Mayor Ron Reed, who also sits on the Pool Refurbishment Committee, said the committee would be putting together all of the options and some numbers to present to Rocanville Town Council in the hope that a decision can be made this fall to move the project forward.
Based on the different options suggested at the meeting on how to move forward with the project, Reed was asked if council is leaning towards the town being the general contractor for upgrading the pool.
“That is our most likely option, but to see how that looks and what that time frame looks like, that’s tough to say,” Reed said.
“We know we can do it, it might just drag on for a while.”
If the town were to proceed as the general contractor, their projection for the pool’s open date would be for April 2025.
“I think it is doable, it’s just a matter of finding that right group that’s able to do the right work at the right time, for the right price,” said Reed.
With around 50 people attending the public meeting, many people had questions about how the project would progress if the town took ownership as the general contractor.
“The general vibe in the room is, I feel, the town wants a pool of some kind,” said Reed.
“I believe we’ll be able to do something, as you can see we didn’t have an option of no pool at all. I don’t think that’s a viable option for us.
“Some of the other options might work, but until we really crunch the numbers, you know this is what an outdoor pool is going to cost, I’m thinking it’s going to be very similar to what we are at now, especially if we lose the grant, is that a viable option anymore? Not in our opinion for the pool.
“Same thing as redoing the building, probably putting in a similar round of money to get 10 to 20 years out of it. That’s why we’re kind of leaning towards the last option to get the pool we want for the price we want.”
Once the process for tendering begins, council would still be able to review the details of the bidders, given if the project were to move forward with the town as the general contractor.
“We did have the numbers for the bids that came through in the first tender, in the second tender, and looking at the sub-trades that were involved in those tenders, we have a general understanding of just the steel building, we have an idea of what that package would be, to what we can somewhat break it up,” said Reed.
Although the projected number for expenses is not definite, Reed said the expenses for the pool would possibly be reduced if the community went through with not hiring a general contractor.
“From our engineered cost estimate to start with, we had a general understanding of what percentage just the building demo was going to cost, then putting up the new building, then the HVAC system, so on,” he said.
“It is hard, especially breaking it down like this, to come up with that end figure, but we’ve been sitting on this committee for a while now and looking at these numbers for a couple of years to have a total idea of, again, what we feel this should cost.
“We’ve got that breakdown already done to get what this committee feels that end cost should be. We know what we think the steel package should be, we know what the concrete should be, we know what the finishing work should be, stuff like that.”
If the cost for an estimated service contract is projected to be more than $75,000, then the committee must go through SaskTenders. If the estimated cost is lower, then the town would be able to do invitational tenders and reach out to local businesses.
Moving forward, council will discuss closely with the Rocanville Pool Refurbishment Committee about what steps they plan to take next regarding the project.
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