Cost Of Barrhaven Police Station Goes From $118M to $178M
The Ottawa Police Service has selected the company that will build the new police station in Barrhaven.
The new police facility will be located on Prince of Wales Drive, between Carleton Lodge and Vimy Bridge. It will replace the Greenbank and Leitrim police stations. The 218,000 square foot facility will include a new 911 Communications Centre.
A report that was presented at the Sept. 25 Ottawa Police Services Board Meeting recommended that the board award the contract to build the facility to Broccolini Construction. According to the report, Broccolini was the lowest of three bids that met all necessary criteria.
The $115.45 million contract includes a 7.5 per cent contingency, worth just over $8 million, to account for unknown conditions that might arise during construction.
A report in February outlined that here are two main facilities that have reached their end of life and are identified to be returned to the City once their operations can be accommodated at other locations; this includes the Leitrim and Greenbank facilities. A 2020 Building Condition Audit of Greenbank identified that funding of over $9 million would be required to simply address basic building maintenance and operating costs over a 13-year period. Leitrim will be further impacted by City road works along Bank Street and Leitrim Road, making operational deployment from this location nearly impossible.
In 2021, the Ottawa Police Services Board approved the Barrhaven facility with a price tag of $118.2 million. The plans for the station were drawn up in 2013.
During the COVID pandemic, plans for the new facility were put on hold as labour and material shortages resulted in a high cost for construction.
It is expected that the City of Ottawa will grow by more than 1.4 million residents over the next 25 years, according to the City’s Official Plan. This growth directly impacts calls for service, and the OPS must keep pace. Additionally, the City and Province are poised to increase residential development to address an ongoing housing crisis. As it pertains to OPS staffing levels, the Mayor has pledged to grow the sworn complement and the OPS has developed its own staffing plan after several years of no growth. An increase to the staffing complement is anticipated to require a minimum increase of 54,000-square-feet of facility space by 2026.
