Council approves new price tag for Trout Pond shelter after it skyrockets

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Town’s plan to build a picnic shelter at the Trout Pond was suddenly up for debate when five bids came back well over the budget that council had planned for. On June 23, the administration asked council to approve an additional $87,000 for the shelter.

“We’ve had the entire marketplace tell us that our budget was incorrect,” said Chris Eagan, director of engineering and operations. He gave council three options to move the project forward.

Option one would require that council approve an extra $87,000 for a total budget not to exceed $250,000. Option two would be to retain the currently approved budget and re-tender the project early 2026 to see if the market readjusted to its earlier anticipated costs. Option three would be to return the initiative to the recreation board and ask for a redesigned shelter to reduce the cost.

Council previously approved a picnic shelter design of steel construction with a precast pony wall to the 2024 capital budget for $148,000. In 2017, William Ferguson donated more than $1.8 million to Trout Pond improvements, and the Town has spent nearly $2.1 million on those various projects to date.

Irrigation extensions, an accessible pathway and pad, a playground, water line to service the BMX pump track, a dog park and community garden, and the Town’s portion of a federal two billion tree grant program all contributed to those expenditures.

The administration issued a request for proposal (RFP) on a design build to local contractors in Dec. 2024, but received no proposals for the project. It then engaged MPE Engineering for a stamped drawing set and to tender the shelter project. The preliminary cost estimate by MPE when the project was presented to council was $148,000 inclusive of material testing and extra work allowance of 10 per cent.

The Town received five bids with pre-GST pricing as follows: Premier Builders – $253,036; Nitro Construction Ltd. – $281,159; VHL Construction Ltd. – $238,400; Westco Construction Ltd. – $279,150; and Westcor Construction Ltd. – $367,906.

“MPE cited accelerating material costs based on potential tariffs as a factor for the cost escalation. The variance in bid pricing for the pony wall was another factor in the cost escalation,” the meeting agenda explained.

Mayor Prokop expressed some frustration at receiving inaccurate advice “from what we’d like to think of as our experts.”

Eagan said the two ways to reduce the budget would be to “reduce quality or reduce quantity.” Prokop wasn’t keen on “going backwards” on either of those attributes. Eagan explained that by using past and present projects to project a cost, MPE was doing the best it could with the info it had at that time.

Coun. Sorensen suggested sending the project back to the rec board to have it select a different design that fell within the original budget. Coun. Bekkering took the opposite position and made a motion that council approve an extra $87,000 for a total budget not to exceed $250,000.

Coun. Brewin arrived late for the meeting and said that he was glad he made it in time to weigh in on the matter. “I would re-tender this in a flash,” he said. “Wow, that’s a lot of money. This is a crazy price for this building. I don’t know what they’re building it out of.”

Coun. Remfert called it a “forever project” and fully supported Bekkering’s motion. Council voted in favour of the extra $87,000 by a 5-2 margin. Brewin and Sorensen opposed it.