Repair bill for Tim Hortons Field climbing to $4 million
If you’re keeping track, the city now expects to spend up to $4 million fixing lingering problems in its new football stadium.
Since the $145-million stadium was handed over late and unfinished before the 2015 Pan Am Games, the city has stepped in to fix everything from leaks to missing draft beer lines to unsafe railings to rain-damaged television screens.
The city has also paid to power the stadium with emergency generators after a transformer blew and commissioned a safety audit after a tower speaker plunged into the empty seats last summer.
Another $1 million or so in work is still needed, said facilities head Rom D’Angelo Wednesday following a closed-door meeting update on the status of duelling lawsuits between the city, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, province and stadium builder over who is to blame for construction delays and deficiencies.
There was no public update on the lawsuit, but D’Angelo said the city is preparing to spend up to $500,000 extra to fix sound and video system problems at Tim Hortons Field. Other mechanical and electrical issues will also eventually be addressed, as well as “minor” leaking on the east side of the stands.
A separate half-million-dollar contract recently closed to fix more serious expansion joint leaks on the west side of the stadium that damaged club suites.
D’Angelo stressed local taxpayers are not on the hook for any of the fixes so far because the city withheld several million dollars in stadium payments to the builder.
At one point, the city said it had more than $6 million in “holdback” payments available. It’s not clear how much of that money remains, but D’Angelo said so far all repairs by the city have been covered.