Rejuvenating a popular Timmins landmark will cost more than originally budgeted.
This week, Timmins council approved an additional $345,048 for a project restoring and rejuvenating the McIntyre Headframe. It brings the total cost of the contract to $865,048.
The city is receiving cash from the province and federal government for the project through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Fund. The city will be responsible for 26.67 per cent — $92,024 — of the additional cost, according to the city report.
The additional cash is for deficiencies that have been found by the contractor, Cy Rheault Construction, and staff overseeing the project, clerk Steph Palmateer told council.
“I think we had to expect something along these lines with respect to the type of job that it is, the inability at times for the contractor to really get to the root of the issues for bid purposes. This is not unusual for a building of that age to expect some of these things,” said Coun. Joe Campbell, whose ward the headframe is in.
In Palmateer's experience with working on the structures, he said the extra cost "was probably to be expected."
“In my previous life as the CAO of Cobalt, we renovated dozens of headframes and we had multiple projects and as well as you can try and plan for 100-year-old structures you’re always going to run into additional items when you go to restore them," he said.
The headframe is owned by the city and is being used by Newmont for its Hollinger pit operations.
When work at the Hollinger pit is done, the property will be returned to the city.
Work on McIntyre headframe has been in the plans for years. In 2019, a bid for high-priority repairs was not approved after the work came in much higher than the city had budgeted. At that time the contingency plan was to deal with more obvious repair work such as loose cladding on the building.
Last July, Cy Rheault was awarded the contract to complete structural repairs and building improvements to ensure its structural integrity.
There is no timeline for when the project could be finished, said Palmateer.
— TimminsToday
