Council approves funding to complete Festival Square
By Tim Kalinowski on July 2, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com City council has approved $1.7 million in spending to complete the Festival Square project to a “gold standard.”The project’s future had been in doubt after City Urban Revitalization manager Andrew Malcolm informed councillors at the June 15 council meeting that the lowest bid to complete the work had come in $485,000 above the $900,000 allotted by the province’s Municipal Stimulus Project (MSP) grant funding.
Malcolm reported during Tuesday’s council meeting that conversations with the province indicated that if the City did not use the $900,000 grant by Dec. 31 it would lose the funding. The province, however, would allow council to reallocate funding as needed from another local MSP project or transfer the Festival Square Project moneys to another MSP project if that was city council’s decision.
Malcolm also informed council it is projected that the two other airport projects funded by the MSP will come in at $1.9 million under budget.
In this light, City staff presented council with three options during Tuesday’s meeting.
First, to finish Festival Square to a basic “bronze” standard as proposed at the June 15 council meeting by moving $485,000 over from the airport surplus and adding it to the $900,000 already allotted in the MSP to complete the work. This would include completing water/wastewater servicing, lane rehab, community lighting, entry sign and decorative column lighting. The additional $1.4 million surplus leftover could be used for the “Bravo Taxiway” repaving at the airport.
The second option was to complete Festival Square to a “gold” standard which would mean spending $1.7 million. This would include the $900,000 MSP grant, the $485,000 as described in option one, and adding a further sum of $325,000 to pay for the additional components envisaged in the original design scheme such as an interactive stage, a secondary entry sign, programmable lighting, and site furniture such as tables, chairs, and planters. This would leave about $1 million for Bravo Taxiway repaving.
The third option was to mothball the Festival Square Project altogether and enter it for potential future CIP funding, and put all its MSP monies into airport repaving instead this year.
Council discussed and ultimately voted down the mothballing option by a close vote of 5-4 with Councillors Hyggen, Mauro, Coffman and Parker in favour.
Deputy Mayor Mark Campbell then put the $1.7 million motion on the table for discussion citing the importance of continuing the downtown revitalization work council started with its 3rd Avenue South upgrades and Heart of Our City initiatives. Festival Square, he felt, would be the next step in those efforts.
Earlier in the discussion Coun. Jeffrey Carlson also reminded council this was provincial grant money being allocated for the project and would not be funded by local taxpayers, and if the MSP grants were not used they would simply be returned to the province.
Campbell’s motion passed by a vote of 6-3 with Mauro, Parker and Hyggen opposed. Follow @TimKalHerald on Twitter 4
-3
