With Airdrie City Council having recently chosen the hybrid option for the future Multi-Use Facility, the stage is now set for the development of concept design, which will then lead to schematic design. 

At the most recent City Council meeting, Airdrie City Council heard the monthly status report for the new facility, which will be located near the downtown core. 

Chris Monson, Managing Principal at Colliers Project Leaders, presented the monthly update to City Council. 

“The work that we've really been focused on in terms of the concept design will allow our team to accelerate the remainder of the concept design and also allows our team to really understand Council's vision for that multi-purpose space.” Monson continued on, “As a result of doing these really precise and fine analysis and understanding of what the multi-use space means, it's going to allow us to accelerate the remainder of the design process.” 

Monson says the project has not exceeded the original budget set from the beginning. 

“We've got the $4.792 million committed to date. Our budget baseline is still $62.7 million. Our anticipated cost at completion is unchanged, so I'm still tracking the project to be on budget. 

Monson also touched on what Airdrie City Council desires when it comes to public art in the Multi-Use Facility. 

“From the research that we've conducted across other major municipal civic type projects across Canada is we're seeing the majority of similar projects allocating funds towards public art.” 

What Monson and his team were finding in, terms of the trends, is a budget of 1 per cent of the cost of construction is typically allocated towards public art to an upset limit, and the upset limit varies from municipality to municipality. 

“We also noted that, apart from the upfront infrastructure costs as far as the soft costs and hard costs to install the public art in some cases, municipalities also allocate a portion of that budget, typically in the range of about 10 per cent towards the future maintenance of these pieces, particularly if the pieces were exterior of the building.” 

After a flurry of questions including “What counts of public art?”, “What will happen if things go over budget?” and “Will the art be local art from Airdrie?”, Councilwomen Tina Petrow put forward the motion to accept the presentation for information and also direct the project team to proceed with a public art project and accept Colliers recommendation of allocating 1% of the construction cost or $520,000 to public art. 

To see Monson’s full presentation and all of councils questions, visit the LIVESTREAM.  

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