GAWLER councillors have praised the final costings of the Gawler Civic Centre Redevelopment Project, despite it exceeding its budget by more than $1 million.
As reported in last week’s Bunyip, the final financial and project closure reports were presented to elected members at their meeting last Tuesday night, after being released to the public over the preceding weekend.
The reports revealed the project was completed for $15.47 million, $1.16 million more than the original $14.31 million announced at the project’s commencement in 2017.
An “optimistic view” of the condition of the stonework and façade of the buildings resulted in the council increasing the contingency amount for the project by $1.22 million in February 2018 – information which was kept confidential until last week.
Project manager Dwaine Bickerdike spoke to elected members at last week’s meeting and told them the council had saved more than $300,000 in final costing negotiations with builders.
“I do apologise, we did intend to get this report out by May, but unfortunately due to a range of negotiation issues, it did take a little longer,” he said.
“In summary, the last three months have been negotiating the final variations for the project; they were in excess of $500,000, which we were collectively working to negotiate the best outcome for Gawler.
“The nature of those claims consisted of an extension of time claim, a significant claim for temporary works, and some significant late additions which we collectively didn’t believe were valid claims.
“We effectively mitigated more than $300,000 worth of costs and delivered the project under the approved budget, the adjusted budget, in the order of $193,000.”
“Also in February 2018, we reset the program and that was also delivered early.”
Absent from last week’s meeting were councillors Ian Tooley and Jim Vallelonga, who have both been critical of the Civic Centre project and its costs throughout its construction.
Councillor Cody Davies said he was “happy” to have the Civic Centre completed and operating for the town.
“If you talk to anyone who’s familiar with doing works on big heritage-listed buildings and said ‘we managed to do something on a big heritage-listed building, and it was only this much we had to put towards contingency’, they’d probably say congratulations,” he said.
“There are bound to be twists and turns when it comes to this kind of thing, it’s a big, complicated project.”
