The City of Prince George will save approximatley $400,000 on the replacement of the Kin 1 arena.
On Monday, city council awarded the contract to demolish the existing arena and rebuild a new arena to Langley-based Yellowridge Construction. Yellowridge Construction's bid came in at $13.1 million, city civic facilities construction and maintenance manager Greg Anderson said.
"The estimate for the construction was $13.5 million. The total project cost is $16.5 million," Anderson said. "[But] at this point we'll leave the budget the way it is."
The city received a total of five bids on the project, ranging from $13.1 million to $15.24 million. IDL Projects Inc., the only Prince George-based company to bid on the project, had the highest bid.
Anderson said while Yellowridge Construction has assumed the risk of unexpected costs arising during the demolition and construction, it's too early to say the project is coming in under budget.
The completed project will include a 200-foot by 100-foot Olympic ice surface, wooden roof, 750-person seating area, viewing area and improved washrooms and change rooms. The city committed to upgrade the Kin Centre arena as part of the bid to host the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
Demolition is expected to begin this May, Anderson said, with completion of the new change rooms to serve the Kin 2 arena set for this fall.
The whole project is expected to take 16 months.
"Building for Kin 1 should be complete by the ice season next year. We should get a full season before the Canada Winter Games in 2015," Anderson said.
The city's decision to demolish and rebuild the Kin 1 arena was the subject of intense community debate last year. A coalition of arena user groups, lead by the Prince George Recreational Hockey League, lobbied the city to build an additional arena in Exhibition Park rather than replace an existing ice surface.
A report by consultants PBK Architects Inc. found the cost of building an additional arena would be $22.2 million, and increase the city's operational costs by $200,000 per year.
Building a new arena would likely take until September 2014 - less than a year before the Canada Winter Games -and leave $3.28 million in upgrades still needed for the Kin Centre, PBK Architects reported.
In June, city council approved the construction of another arena at Exhibition Park, but later that month former mayor Dan Rogers employed a rarely-used power of the mayor's office to bring the issue back for reconsideration. In the second vote, city council reversed its decision and opted to rebuild the Kin 1 arena.
