OSCA Document Archive

AGM Firehall Redevelopment Report 2008-05-06

The OSCA Redevelopment Committee is a special committee of the Board concerned with the renovation and expansion of the Old Firehall community centre and is chaired by the President.

The Committee’s main focus this year (from November 2007 to April 2008) has been working with City of Ottawa staff in helping to draft the specifications to be incorporated in the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the renovation and expansion of the Firehall. As such, the Committee spent considerable time developing a space allocation plan that outlined what facilities would be required for program and community activities in the Firehall. This included defining the actual room spaces, their size and the kinds of facilities, finishings and equipment they would require.

The committee also spent considerable time in discussions with City officials to determine what environmental attributes the building should contain, given the budget limits that we were facing. All of this work on space allocation and environmental issues is contained in Annex 3 of the City’s RFP which is attached for your information. The Annex outlines for the contractors what is expected in the final design in terms of program and environmental features.

The RFP was posted in early April and about 11 companies attended a briefing and walkabout on April 14. Bidding on the RFP closed on May 1^st and a total of 7 bids were received. An evaluation committee of City staff will shortly be choosing a winner, hopefully within the next week.

Once a winner is chosen work will start in earnest with the contractor in defining the design and the committee will be meeting with the City project team periodically to review progress and review major design decisions. It may also be the case that one or two members of the Committee will participate in the bi-weekly progress meetings as well.

The work will proceed in two phases, the first which will be concerned with determining the basic design and structure of the renovated building space – in essence what programming space will go where, how many floors will be needed and how large and where will the addition to the building will be placed. These proposals will be the subject of a community consultation that will hopefully take place before the summer holidays.

Over the summer and into the early fall the detailed design work will take place where the actual architectural and engineering drawings will be completed. Again, before everything is set in stone a second public meeting will be held to showcase the design and get community input before the design and drawings are finalized and detailed cost estimates completed for construction.

The goal of the exercise is to have proposal ready for Council’s consideration at the next budget discussions in the late fall of this year and hopefully inclusion in the City’s 2009 Budget. Much of the next committee’s work, therefore, will need to focus on not only the actual design of the Firehall, but the strategy to gain Council support for financing this project.

In closing I would like to thank the following individuals who participated in the Committee’s work this year: Lisa Drouillard, Kevin Harper, David Law, Brendan McCoy, Steve Mennil, Nerys Parry, Patti Ryan, and of course, support from Deirdre McQuillan our executive director and Cathie Buchanan and Dinos Dafniotis from the Community Centre’s City staff.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael Jenkin

Chair

2 May 2008

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