Ottawa’s National Holocaust Monument a year behind schedule
OTTAWA — The National Holocaust Monument, one of the Conservative government’s signature new memorials in Ottawa, is badly behind schedule and now won’t officially open until spring 2017 — a year later than planned.
The monument, to be built opposite the Canadian War Museum, will be the largest and most complex monument created in the capital since the National War Memorial in 1939.
The original timetable called for construction to start last March, with completion in December and an inauguration ceremony May 4, 2016, on Yom HaShoah, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day. But the project ground to a halt when bids from pre-qualified firms for the construction contract came in well above budget, said Margi Oksner, executive director of the National Holocaust Monument Development Council, created in 2011 to raise money for the project.
“We weren’t sure what caused that,” Oksner said. “We were all surprised by it. None of us felt that our original estimates were loopy.”
The overall budget for the monument is about $8 million, including construction costs, artist fees, site studies and preparation, fabrication of artistic elements and the cost of the national design competition. The development council has raised $4.4 million to date and the federal government has contributed $4 million.
“We were not interested in going over budget,” said Oksner. To reduce costs, the project team has made a few minor changes to the monument design, she said.
The construction contract will be re-tendered over the winter, with the aim of starting construction in early spring 2016 and completing it by winter of 2016.
The monument is now scheduled to be unveiled on Yom HaShoah in 2017, which falls on April 24.
The development council and project team plan to hire a construction management adviser to provide advice and negotiate price reductions with firms that bid on the construction contract.