As the city prepares to move into the new Operations Building on Range Road, city council is being asked to approve a $926,514 paving contract for the facility.

Administration is recommending the contract be awarded to Terus Construction, operating as Skookum Asphalt, the only company to submit a bid.

Council is scheduled to vote on the contract award at next Monday’s meeting.

“The city received only one bid since Terus Construction (Skookum Asphalt) is the only large paving contractor available locally to do the work,” reads the administrative report presented to council at its meeting Monday.

“The review committee agreed that the bidder is familiar with the scope of work and has the knowledge and experience to complete the work successfully. The prices submitted are reasonable and the city has sufficient funds in the project budget.”

The overall budget for the building was set at $55 million.

Wayne Tuck, the city’s senior project engineer, told council the project has reached substantial completion.

There are still some deficiencies that need to be addressed but they’re not related to achieving substantial completion, he said.

Tuck said they’ll be estimating the cost of addressing the deficiencies and hold back the amount until the work is completed.

Mayor Dan Curtis said achieving substantial completion was an epic day for the city.

The Operations Building is the largest project the city has ever procured, Curtis said.

He offered congratulations to several of the city’s senior staff who have overseen the project.

It really is a benefit to the whole community, the mayor told his colleagues on council Monday.

Curtis said he knows people who have spent their entire careers – more than 30 years – working in the Municipal Services Building (MSB) on Fourth Avenue.

Many of the staff working at the MSB will be relocated to the new Operations Building, which measures 115,000 square feet, has eight large garage bays and thousands of square feet of office space.

The project is several months behind because of a huge number of change orders during construction related to the original design, council has been told in the past.

Tuck explained in an interview Tuesday there are already five office staff who have moved in. Other staff will begin relocating next month, he said.

The move was originally expected to begin this past March but was delayed in part by progress on the project and the impact of COVID-19, he said.

Coun. Dan Boyd also offered his congratulations.

“It is quite a major accomplishment, a milestone,” he said.

Boyd said the city can now look forward to retiring the MSB, which has been described as old, and way past its prime.

Councillors Steve Roddick and Laura Cabott questioned whether it’s necessary to pave the parking area.

Residents of country residential properties might be wondering why they have roadways surfaced with BST while the parking area for the city employees and city vehicles gets pavement, they suggested.

Tuck said told council that leaving the parking area as a gravel surface would create issues of dust and blowing sand.

Pavement over BST is much more durable and better able to handle the volume of traffic that will be using the parking area, he said.

Tuck said it came down to a cost benefit analysis – and paving won out.