Cost to build it nears $60M
Sports facility expert calls huge price unnecessary
One expert calls it “the most expensive indoor soccer facility in the world” but the city keeps doling out money and defending the project that has been problematic since the start. Originally budgeted at $28.3 million, the final price will be more than double — and it may not meet the city’s needs.
As the official price tag to build Montreal’s new soccer centre soars to nearly $60 million, a sports facility consultant has dubbed it the most expensive indoor soccer complex in the world.
“I become very irate when I see the cost of projects that I will be paying for with our taxes,” said Larry Eldridge, who has more than 30 years of experience in the field. “I’m seething over the fact that they’re building a $60-million indoor soccer facility.”
Eldridge has worked on soccer and other sport facility projects for private firms, municipalities and universities in and outside of Canada.
He says Montreal should have built three to four public soccer centres to serve the island, and for much less than the cost of the complex it’s building at the Complexe environnemental de St-Michel at Papineau Ave. and Louvain St.
“When you build something like that, it shouldn’t be a monument to the architects,” Eldridge said, noting that city officials have defended the project’s high cost because the centre’s unusual design is in keeping with Montreal’s designation as a UNESCO city of design.
“It’s the most expensive indoor soccer facility in the world.”
Among his past projects, Eldridge planned the fields for Université Laval and was project manager for a football and soccer field and synthetic running track for the town of Drummondville last year. He added that he’s never worked for the city of Montreal.
The Montreal centre, which is to open late this year, will host soccer leagues in the city that have long wished for a year-round indoor venue.
However, Eldridge said he doesn’t expect the complex, as conceived, will meet the needs. Even though the field inside the soccer centre will be divisible to permit six teams and 60 players to practice per hour, the local three regional associations count 40,000 players, he said.
“There should be at least three base facilities in Montreal,” he said. “The young soccer players couldn’t care less if it’s a UNESCO city of design. They just want an in- door facility where they can play their sport.”
City council awarded the latest contract for the soccer centre last week.
The $1.5-million contract to L.M.L. Paysagiste et Frères Inc., which has won other turf-supply contracts in Montreal, calls for the supply and installation of field turf on the indoor and outdoor fields.
L.M.L. Paysagiste submitted the highest bid of the three companies that sought the contract. But it got the best grade from the jury that evaluated the bids for the city.
One bidder was disqualified because some of the physical characteristics of its turf didn’t meet the contract specifications, a civil service report on the contract says.
The remaining company’s price was $112,000 less than L.M.L. Paysagiste’s bid. But the jury gave a higher mark to L.M.L. for the quality of its bid.
L.M.L. said it would attach catalytic converters to its vehicles’ exhausts to reduce CO2 emissions, the report notes, though it doesn’t mention whether the other bidder made the same offer. L.M.L.’s bid responds to the environmental standards of the LEED-certified soccer centre project, it says. The jury also liked L.M.L. Paysagiste’s offer of $5,369 worth of postinstallation maintenance service and a subsequent maintenance program, but again doesn’t mention the other bidder’s offer.
However, Eldridge, who examined the contract tenders for The Gazette, said the losing company offered a higher fibre weight turf. It’s the main factor to consider when selecting turf, he said.
The city defended the contract awarding process by jury, saying it balances the price with the quality of the bid. It also ensures that maintenance will remain the responsibility of the chosen firm, executive committee spokesperson Sabrina Williams said.
Meanwhile, the official project construction tally has hit $56.9 million, the civil service report on the turf contract shows.
However, just last month, city executive committee member Dimitrios Beis said through a spokesperson that the final cost for the complex would be “about” $50 million.
“It’s a lot of money, sure,” an email sent by a Beis aide said in May.
“But the soccer centre will be really beautiful, very stylish and will become one of the most beautiful modern buildings in Montreal, all to the benefit of the public.”
Even now, the $56.9 million tally doesn’t include all costs related to the centre, such as road and infrastructure work and smaller items that have been the subject of contracts awarded by civil servants in recent months.
It also doesn’t count indirect work, such as a $411,577 landscaping contract that the Coderre administration awarded in late May to Les Entreprises Daniel Robert Inc. to redo the entrance to the Taz skateboard park, which is adjacent to the future soccer centre.
The landscaping around the skate park will surely benefit the soccer centre as well, Projet Montréal councillor Émilie Thuillier said. She has tried to find out, asking the executive committee to inspect the plans for the landscaping work. She said she was told there are no plans.
City officials, meanwhile, had ample warning, as early as the initial design phase in 2011, that the soccer centre could never be built anywhere close to an initial $24-million budget that was set in the design competition rules by the administration of then-mayor Gérald Tremblay.
The report by a jury of civil servants and outside experts that was assembled to select the winning design for the facility foreshadowed cost overruns, noting in its report that each of the four design proposals submitted by architecture firms would blow the budget.
All but one of the architecture firms submitted a cost estimate for construction that indicated it would meet the city’s required budget, the report said.
However, a firm of professional construction cost estimators that was mandated to examine the cost estimate of each proposal concluded that all of the submissions “surpass the budget in a significant way.”
The city’s budget seemed to be “underestimated in the context of a contest and LEED Gold certification,” the professional cost estimators found, but that “nevertheless doesn’t justify the extent of the overruns,” the jury’s report said.
As a result, the jury said it would base its selection on the quality of design and the design team, and leave it to the city to sort out the budget “according to its priorities.”
City council awarded the architecture contract to the jury’s choice. The Tremblay administration announced at the time that the project would cost $28.3 million.
“Even when it was $30 million, I was jumping up and down and saying ‘Why, what are they doing that it’s $30 million for such a facility?’ ” Eldridge said.
“It was much more than needed to be spent.”