The Ottawa Police Services Board (OPSB) voted unanimously Monday to cancel a tender for the construction of a planned police campus in south Ottawa, even as a local construction company questioned the fairness of the procurement process.

Chief Peter Sloly requested a pause to the tendering process for the Ottawa Police South Campus — a $118 million project to build a new station on a 15.5-acre site located at 3505 Prince of Wales Drive, near Carleton Lodge.

Sloly cited rising construction costs, provincial legislation requiring police services to incorporate community safety and well-being into planning, ongoing reflections prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and “other, larger social and societal changes” as reasons for the pause.

“The pause is to allow ourselves and our community partners … to make sure that we’ve got the right design for a building that should serve the city in excess of a quarter century,” Sloly said at a press conference before the board meeting Monday.

According to a staff report, a tender was released in December 2020 to three pre-qualified bidders for the first phase of construction. The Ottawa police website says the new building will house frontline operations teams, a canine unit, a tactical unit, a marine dive and trail unit, a community relations team and a collision reporting centre.

The city received bids from general contracting companies PCL and Pomerleau that complied with the tender requirements, the report said.

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