SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Northern company has been recommended to council to complete the $493,605 renovation at the Wildcat Cafe this summer.

City administration brought forward a recommendation at Monday's Municipal Services Committee meeting, suggesting that Mountain River Outdoor Adventures Ltd., a Norman Wells-based company, repair

the 74-year-old heritage building.

Repairs include replacing the foundation, eliminating the sagging in the roof, replacing rotten logs, chinking logs, replacing the floor in the dish pit and bathrooms, re-framing windows and doors, and replacing the washroom. The restaurant will remain closed during the renovations.

Yvonne Quick, the chair of the Wildcat Cafe Advisory Committee, told council why it should move ahead with the renovations.

"The Wildcat has always brought tourism and tourists down to the Old Town area and that area is where Yellowknife started.

"It's important to salvage this building now or it's just going to get worse and it will cost us more later on. And we need to save as much of our heritage and culture as possible in Yellowknife."

Quick also pointed to city council's goals of promoting heritage and marketing Yellowknife as proof that the city should move forward with the project.

The expense of repairing the cafe was a point of contention for city councillor Cory Vanthuyne during the 2011 budget deliberations and continues to be today.

He said he recognizes the significance of the building, but he isn't happy with the way the renovations were slipped into the budget without council having an opportunity to debate it in committee beforehand.

"I do not support the process, or in this instance the lack thereof, of how it was determined that the Wildcat Cafe was in need of a half-million-dollar repair. I'm discouraged that no recommendation or memorandum was presented by the Heritage Committee and/or administration."

During budget deliberations, Vanthuyne suggested the city do a cost-benefit analysis before starting repairs on the heritage building.

At Monday's meeting, he was the only councillor to speak out against the recommendation to enter into a contract with Rick Muyres of Mountain River Outdoor Adventures.

Couns. Mark Heyck and Bob Brooks both suggested to Vanthuyne that with the budget passed, it is no longer a question of whether the renovations should be done, but now a question of who should be awarded the contract.

Council will vote on the recommendation on March 14.

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