The 2019 phase of the Western Financial Place Roof replacement is in the final stages and remains on its $2.64 million budget before the project shifts over to the arena portion of the roof in 2020.
Contractors first started work in summer 2018 on the restaurant roof, while the 2019 phase entailed work on the sections of the roof above the aquatic centre, lobby area, and racquetball courts.
“We’re just wrapping up that up probably in the next week and we see that coming in on budget at $2,641,000,” Paul Heywood told MyEastKootenayNow.com, the City of Cranbrook’s Lead on the Western Financial Place Roof Project.
Heywood said the majority of the work was on insulating the parapet wall around the aquatic centre, and with the various sections of roof and differing humidity levels, it proved challenging for the workers involved.
“We had to put in insulation, we had to rebuild some of the walls just so that the roof wasn’t building up high levels of condensation, which was also leading to parts of the leaking.”
The Western Financial Place roof is nearly 20 years old, and upon completion of the 2019 phase, the majority of the roof will now be covered in a two-ply insulator and vapour barrier. Heywood said the replacement should ensure the roof’s life for another 20 years.
To date, there were three change orders on the 2019 phase of the project, using up half of the dedicated contingency budget, but still remaining within the City’s $2.64 million budget.
Full completion of the project is anticipated in 2020 as the focus will now move to the barrel roof, or the roof above the arena.
“That is the largest of the surfaces, but it’s certainly not as intricate as the other 16 surfaces that we’ve had to deal with presently,” said Heywood. “We’re looking forward to wrapping up this project by the end of the summer next year. At that point, we will have every roof fixed on top of Western Financial Place.”
Although next year’s budget has yet to be formally approved, Cranbrook City Council did pre-approve $2.69 million for the arena roof portion so that designs and tenders could be issued early in 2020 and secure management for the next phase of the project.