Repairing Port Moody’s Kyle Centre will cost almost $3 million.
Last Tuesday, council voted to move the project forward to the design development phase, even though questions remain about the 44-year-old building’s long-term future and the cost to fix it could impact other planned projects in the city.
A staff report presented to council said Kyle Centre has “reached a stage where the building envelope needs to be replaced.”
An engineering company hired in 2020 to assess the building’s condition further said many of Kyle Centre’s existing building envelope assemblies, windows and skylights are in such poor shape they no longer meet current building code requirements.
A followup report completed last May by JRS Engineering in Burnaby estimates the cost to repair those items, including replacing the roof, will be $2.832,300.
Port Moody’s general manager of finance and technology, Paul Rockwood, said while the money to proceed is available from the city’s density bonus fund that is fuelled by contributions from developers in return for increased density to their projects, it would likely mean other projects would have to move down the priority queue.
City manager Tim Savoie said council could learn of those in the fall.
That concerned Coun. Diana Dilworth.
“I don’t think we have a plethora of density bonus funds waiting to be spent,” she said.
Coun. Meghan Lahti cautioned the cost of repairs is steep considering the building might ultimately be replaced if the city’s recent request for proposals for seniors housing and a new Kyle Centre from developers looking to build in the surrounding neighbourhood bears fruit.
“I’m still really resistant to spending that kind of money on the repairs without knowing what is going to happen on that site and what is going to happen to that building,” she said.
But Mayor Rob Vagramov said Kyle Centre is in such poor condition, it needs to be fixed so it can continue to be used currently, let alone into the future.
“The building needs to get attention,” he said. “We’re going to rebuild, but it’s going to take another decade. We need to get on with this work.”
Besides hosting seniors and community programming, Kyle Centre also served as an emergency warming shelter for the homeless last winter.
