Bringing down the hall
Grollier Hall demolition costs doubled

Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Mar 06/00) - Although Grollier Hall has been closed for many years and the building demolished, the problems of the former residential school are far from over.

As RCMP still continue to investigate numerous complaints of sexual abuse, contractors are scrambling to recover from hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses resulting in the demolition/dismantling of the old school.

Floyd Roland, MLA for Inuvik Boot Lake said the demolition of the residential school was the most cost-effective option available.

"There were a number of reasons, one was the age of the building, to refurbish it and use it for something else would have cost a lot of money," Roland said. "It was one of those buildings that was built on wooden pilings, so they would have had to put a fair amount of money into it just to stabilize the buildings."

The site will be considered as the site for a new college campus, Roland said, but the old school was too far gone to consider as a fixer-upper.

"That location is being looked at for the replacement of the Aurora campus in Inuvik," he said. "They looked at refurbishing that building, but the cost of refurbishing that building made it uneconomical."

The cost overruns involved in the demolition resulted from the extra time needed to remove hazardous materials.

"There were some delays because of asbestos that they found in the building and they had to adjust the timing on the project," he said.

One of the contractors on the demolition is Sam Kassem, president of Northern Management and Development.

"The original estimate came in at $600,000, and final costs were about $1.3 million," said Kassem.

Kassem added there are special processes to remove asbestos and lead paint, but when demolition bids were submitted the contractors were unaware of the hazardous materials present in the building.

Demolition was halted by the government and delayed by the Workers' Compensation Board until procedures were in place to handle the toxic materials. Kassem said the contractors were halted for about three months during the project.

"Compensation issued a stop-work order on the project until we dealt with the asbestos issue -- that lasted about a month," he said.

They had projected to recover some of the overruns through the sale of salvageable material. The contractors have recovered about $200,000 through the sale of steel piping, unit heaters, furniture, plywood, water tank and pumps, but still remain about $700,000 short of their costs, with $150,000 of that owing to two sub-contractors.

Kassem said the two contractors and the government should share the debt, but since the delays were cause by the government, he believes they should shoulder the brunt of the debt.

"We feel that everybody should carry his own share of the responsibility and we feel the government has to pay ... for the time (contractors had) to stand by on the project and the delays that were caused," he said. "Not necessarily everything, but a portion of it should be taken by the government ... a great portion of it."

Kassem said the contractors have been patient, but failing negotiations, the partners will take legal action.

"We sent them a claim a long time ago and we hadn't heard anything back, so we started activating the issue and it's causing us a lot of hardship," he said. "We either have to come to an agreement or take it to court."

Despite the extra costs and the work slowdowns, Kassem assures the project went well, providing 30 people jobs for six months and hopes to rehire for summer employment.

"The project was a great success and provided a substantial amount of employment in the community," he said. "We had something like 30,000 man hours on this project.

"The financial gain in such a project is not really much - it's the concept itself," he said. "Reusing materials, the lumber and recycling everything and creating a little employment - it keeps the money a little while longer in the North."

Brian Lemax, superintendent for Inuvik region of the department of public works and services, said the government has committed more than a $100,000 extra toward the completion of the project.

"The original contract was in the region of $219,000, and the cost to the government was about $349,000," Lemax said.

Lemax said the extra costs came from the removal of lead paint and asbestos piping.