The City of New Westminster is reevaluating plans for access to Westminster Pier Park after getting a big surprise when bids started to roll in to city hall.
The city had posted a bid on its website for the construction of a "cantilevered" pedestrian overpass from the edge of Westminster Pier Park to the Front Street Parkade, with the structure to align with Fourth Street. The tender process has been cancelled.
"We put it out to tender. When the tenders came back they exceeded our budget amount," said Roger Emanuel, the city's manager of design and construction.
The city's originally budgeted $1.3 million for the overpass, and later increased the budget to $1.85 million.
"We cancelled the tender and we are working with the consultant to see if we can find ways to reduce the cost," Emanuels told The Record. "They exceeded what the engineers' estimates were. We are working on seeing what was different, why did the number come in so high, what adjustments can we make or can we, to reduce the cost and re-tender the project."
Currently, the park is only accessible via a parking lot at the west side of the riverfront site. If access was provided to the park via Fourth Street, it would take park goers into the area where the concession, washrooms and viewing area are located.
"We would still prefer to have Fourth Street as a crossing location," Emanuels said. "When we originally got to that location it was because of the circulation through the park. It got you down to the east end of the park. If you were walking through the park, you weren't doubling back."
Accessing the park near Sixth Street would bring park goers closer to the current entrance to the park, which is accessible only from the Larco site. That site, located between Westminster Pier Park and River Market, currently consists of a parking lot.
Mayor Wayne Wright told The Record earlier this week that the city is reevaluating access to the park as part of ongoing discussions with Larco, which hopes to redevelop its property.
"The city is still very committed to getting an access point. It might still be at Fourth Street. With the work we are doing with Larco, we are taking a look at Sixth Street," Coun. Jonathan Cote told The Record. "The city is eager go see that move forward. We want to make sure we have the right location."
In June, the city announced a new vision for the Larco site, which has zoning that currently allows five highrises. Council directed staff to consult with Larco on the city's desire to amend the zoning for the site to ensure it fits with the city's vision for the waterfront.
"The way it ties in with the Larco discussion is if we can't find significant cost savings and make it doable at the Fourth Street alignment, then there may be opportunity with the visioning at the Larco property to do something different over in those locations that we didn't consider earlier on," Emanuels said.
Emanuel couldn't disclose how much over budget the bids were, as the project will be retendered. The city will be contacting each of the bidders and questioning them about the reason for the bids being higher than what had been expected.
"If after those conversations, which are happening right now, we don't think that we can find a significant cost savings, then we will have to look at a lesser structure. When it first went to council we talked about an iconic structure. So is there a way of lightening it up and reducing costs that way, or do we look at an alternate access point?" he said. "We went back and forth on a number of crossing locations when we were evaluating the crossings."
The city preferred the Fourth Street location because anyone coming to the park via Fourth Street was greeted by an inviting and green entry into the park, Emanuels said.
"It is a priority," he said about providing another access point into the park. "We will try to get this one done within budget, or we look at an alternative."
The original tender documents in the bid summary included a geotechnical report and structural, electrical and architectural drawings. The overpass, which included stairs and an elevator connection to Westminster Pier Park from Fourth Street, was scheduled to be complete by this month.
In May, staff told council that the city would be able to consider bids that could fast track construction of the overpass. At that time, the city revised the timeline and anticipated that the overpass would be in place in October.
