Cornwall’s future municipal works administration building and multi-use garage building took a step towards reality on Monday.

City council agreed with the recommendation to award the request for proposal (RFP) for the design and construction administration of the buildings to Ottawa-based J.L. Richards & Associates. The RFP’s total bid price came up to $1,595,076, with a net cost to the city of $1,436,415 — less than the $2,015,000 that had been budgeted by the city through its 2019 and 2020 budgets.

Two other bids for the project were received by administration — Cornwall’s Architecture49 Inc. with a price of $1,788,608, and Winnipeg’s Republic Architecture Inc. who sent a bid of $1,441,269.

The construction of the buildings is actually the second phase of the municipal works yard redevelopment project — the first being the construction of a new shalt shed. The latter, which has a 7,000 ton salt capacity, was opened in October.

Other components of the first phase included a new employee parking lot located on Twelfth Street, as well as the installation and insulation of a large standby generator, designed to provide electricity to present and future municipal works facilities in the event of a power outage.

The price of building the new salt shed proved to be far more costly than initially anticipated however. In all, the project cost $4.5 million — nearly $2 million more than the $2.5 million that was budgeted for it. The reason as to why the first phase doubled in price came down to soil quality.

At the time of the unveiling of the shed, Bill de Wit, the City of Cornwall’s division manager for municipal works, said the ground on which the salt shed sits — and perhaps then, the future improved municipal works yard — is unstable.

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