SURREY — The city’s planning manager says it’s too early to say if $250,000 will be spent on “small modifications” to the main-floor reception area of City Hall in Whalley.
The city is awaiting bids for the work, with a May 23 deadline. According to the request for quotations, the upgrading will involve the demolition and relocation of reception and security desks.
“It’s not really renovation, we’re doing some changes to our front counter on the main floor and right now it’s out for tender, so we don’t really mention usually how much, we are expecting that to come,” said Jean Lamontagne, general manager of planning and development for the City of Surrey.
Should City Hall be spending what could be as much as $250,000 on upgrades?
“Basically we’re making some modification to the front counter area and we’re adding some, I’ll call it wickets, where you serve the public, and reception area.”
Asked where the $250,000 figure is coming from, Lamontagne told the Now-Leader, “Well that’s, you know, our staff that are planning these improvements. Like we’ve done some improvements on the second floor, in 2016, so, you know, they are basing some of their expected cost because there’s some electrical, there’s some work, like you know you have to kind of think that if you are having wickets you have to have like the same type of counters and finishes, right?”
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Improvements to the second-floor service counter in 2016 cost $107,562, plus tax. Surrey’s new city hall was opened in early 2014, at a sticker price of $97 million, but factoring in interest paid on a 10-year loan, the total bill came to $128 million.
“When you move to a new building you plan as much as you can how work is going to flow from the residents to staff, and then you study that to make sure that over time you are set up the best way possible. And for us to continue to serve the public better it just makes sense to make some small modifications, so it’s nothing major,” Lamontagne said.
Lamontagne said it would be “far-fetched” at this point to say the city is spending $250,000 on the project, “because we haven’t received a tender. Money hasn’t been spent yet, if you will.
“We’ve set some money aside, but would it be that? I don’t know.”
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