WELLINGTON COUNTY – A county committee wants to explore other options after being unsatisfied with a second lower-cost proposal for an outdoor pavilion to go in beside the Indigenous Gathering Circle near the Wellington County Museum and Archives.
The information, heritage and seniors (IHS) committee members, and guest councillors, were ultimately not convinced the original goal of the pavilion couldn’t be achieved at the price point given and rejected a staff recommendation to pause the project to look for more funding.
The outdoor pavilion presented at a Wednesday afternoon IHS committee meeting was a “budget-friendly” version of a previous proposal that was set to cost $1.3 million. This pavilion was intended to serve as an event space, act as an extension for activities and further Wellington Place’s status as a destination spot for visitors and residents.
County council approved a motion to remove $600,000 from the project’s budget in a split 8-6 vote in January.
The new version presented at the information, heritage and seniors committee meeting fit inside the new $775,000 budget but reduced parking space and the building’s footprint by two-thirds to 1,000 square feet.
The report said this iteration would only function in fair weather, could not accommodate large entertainment events or a food and drink preparation space. It also does not meet any of the Indigenous advisory committee’s input on the project.
The staff recommendation was to pause the project until sufficient funding exists.
The IHS committee did not agree with this direction.
“I think we should move ahead if there’s a need for this specifically, which I believe that there is, we should try to accommodate that in a manner we can,” said Coun. Jeff Duncan. “We’ve gone through two iterations with the existing architect, one wasn’t supported by council and this one isn’t supported by staff. My suggestion would be to look at other architects.”
Coun. Doug Breen noted 1,000 square feet wasn’t much bigger than the room the IHS meeting was being held in.
“It doesn’t matter what it is, if it’s not used then it’s a waste of money,” Breen said. “It can be very expensive but if it’s used constantly then it wasn’t a waste of money.”
IHS committee chair Coun. Mary Lloyd was alarmed at the price when considering how much smaller the build is and didn’t want to completely ignore the Indigenous advisory committee’s input.
“I know there’s other facilities around that can be built or have been built for this kind of envelope, locally our Kinsmen clubs they build pavilions all the time,” said Coun. Gregg Davidson, not an IHS committee member but put forward the original budget reducing motion. “Not to this scale but they build pavilions all the time that come nowhere close to what the cost of this is.”
CAO Scott Wilson chimed in reminding the committee it could receive the report and ignore the recommendation, adding a report is coming forward to the administration, finance and human resources committee the following week on a new process on capital builds that he was confident would address the concerns he heard.
He explained this process would involve a committee picking an architect, creating a building committee to take input in from user groups and would be informed at every stage of the design how it was developing.
While Lloyd questioned if this project had a budget large enough to warrant this type of treatment, Warden Andy Lennox said a project like this might be low risk enough for it to be worth giving the process a trial run.
The committee received the report as recommendation and approved staff proceeding with investigating other options for the project. This decision will need to be ratified by county council at a meeting later in March.
