City staff reports a September opening of the Centennial Arena is unlikely. Last month, the overseeing contractor stepped away from the structural portion of the arena project however, there is no change to the structural contractor who remains on the project. An unanswered question about the foundation has emerged.
And council continues to press for the September opening. Members express feeling “mad” and “frustrated” about the situation.
Last fall, a Structural Health Monitoring system was installed in the Centennial Arena by Wood Research and Design (WRD) to monitor the health of the building in real-time. This was in response to discovered structural deficiencies that resulted in the closure of the arena, Sept. 11.
At last Monday’s council meeting, Acting Director of Public Works, Bill Goulding, reiterated his written report contained in the agenda package, stating, “on March 8, no less than eight alarms were received.”
Goulding described how sensitive the structural health monitoring system is.
“To give you an idea how sensitive the health monitoring system is, when the alarm started going off, the first question that the techs asked us as staff were, ‘Oh, have any delivery trucks changed route in the area recently?’ Depending upon their calibration, they can measure those kinds of vibrations.”
It was not stated as related, but on Monday, March 11, the overall project contractor Johnson Controls International (JCI) advised Goulding of their intention to step away from overseeing the structural subcontractor, WRD.
JCI’s ‘step away’ from overall project oversight, will prevent their work from being done until the structural work is completed. That work includes roof and wall work and other work planned for JCI to utilize their energy savings, ESCO approach, and expertise.
The original intention was that some of JCI’s work could be done before WRD’s work was fully complete. And that would have shortened the overall timeline for completion.
In response to the alarms, Goulding brought WRD back on-site to inspect for causes.
During the inspection, two foundation piers were visually examined.
“We looked at the piers for the arena. The working theory was that perhaps the piers are just a little bit undersized, but the calculations have to be run for that. It looks like they may be a little bit shallow, but again, [they] have to run the calculations on that as well.”
“But that theory [frost movement] is supported by the fact that these alarms for the health monitoring system have been triggered in correlation with the temperature change with the spring thaw. It looks like it was frost action moving the structure from below.”
It has not been determined if there is a foundation issue or, if there is, what its implications are on cost or the construction schedule.
Referring to the monitoring system, Goulding said, “We’ve learned a lot about the building with that [system] in place.”
“Another angle on that consideration is that a lot of the movement and damage that we had presumed was just due to water – it’s due to water - but it’s due to other things as well.”
And he noted, “if we had charged headstrong in the fall [season] to making sure that we put things back together again, we would have missed a very significant structural issue with the arena.”
“I take the firm view that despite the appetite that the community at large wants to see this facility reopened, we have to do it in a safe and considered way to make sure that all issues are addressed,” he said.
During the lengthy debate, council inquired about costs and other issues, however, their primary focus was on a September opening.
Couns. Norman Mann, “I would really like to see an optimistic, aggressive timeline to meet Q3 and not Q4. That’s something that I would really like to see if that’s even reasonable to talk about. I guess we’ll have to wait to see what comes back from this report. … I will continue to think that we can meet some of our own thoughts of September and not the balance of the year.”
Couns. Luc Morrissette, “When I read this report, I was really mad that there were just moving along but it’s not enough. My next question is, is it possible to get the structure safe enough for the opening of the arena at the end of August?”
Couns. Charles Flintoff, “We’re all frustrated, Mr. Goulding, and I know you are, too. … “We don’t really have an exact timeline, and we don’t want to put the pressure on you, but it’s such an important part about Elliot Lake, as we saw with Kraft Hockeyville.”
Goulding reminded the council and public, “We’re still entering into a project that’s somewhere around the third of the price of what a new arena would cost [and] we’re not exceeding the timeline of what a conventional build project would be, either.”
Mayor Andrew Wannan, “Let’s hope we can find some efficiencies because there is an appetite to have that place open for September.”
Archived video of council’s debate is on the City website here.