Clock is ticking for solution to suspended $95M Red River College project problems

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This article was published 06/03/2018 (2831 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With construction season fast approaching, Red River College needs to resolve its impasse with Ottawa over the timing of completing a new downtown Innovation Centre soon, says the Winnipeg college’s president and chief executive officer.

Paul Vogt said in an interview late Tuesday the matter must be solved within days, not weeks or months.

“We anticipate that the bulk of construction for the foundation and the frame will take place this summer and fall, so the tenders have to get out now so we can select the subtrades to do that,” he said.

Vogt said he thinks the college’s decision — first reported by the Free Press — to suspend work on the $95-million centre has opened up a line of communication with the federal Innovation Science and Economic Development Department, which last year committed close to $41 million to the project.

Red River is financing the rest of the cost and has launched a fundraising drive.

Ottawa was given a few days advance warning of the project’s suspension before news of it became public. “I think they realized we’d come to a pretty critical decision point,” the RRC head said.

Ottawa wants the 100,000-square-foot centre to be completed by Nov. 30 of this year. It was one of the largest projects approved following the launch of a post-secondary institutions investment fund in April 2016.

The original deadline for completion of projects funded under the program was to be this April. However, after lobbying from across the country, the feds agreed to move the deadline date to November.

The problem for Red River is its project was one of the last to receive approval. Ottawa didn’t sign off until June 2017. That left a 17-month window to design and build the centre — an impossible task in RRC’s view.

A complicating factor is the new centre incorporates the shell of a heritage building on Elgin Avenue.

“The key decision rests with Ottawa. And I can say that we’re in touch with senior officials in (Innovation) Minister (Navdeep) Bains’ department and in the PMO (prime minister’s office),” Vogt said. “We still don’t have a resolution but… the discussions have felt positive to me. They’ve been asking the right directions.”

Vogt said Manitoba’s lone federal cabinet minister, Jim Carr, has been raising the issue in Ottawa.

“I think he’s given us hope that the federal government will see the importance of this project,” Vogt said of Carr, who has declined to be interviewed on the subject for two consecutive days.

The Manitoba government has not contributed any money to the project, but it has agreed to guarantee RRC’s loan of up to $54 million.

Education and Training Minister Ian Wishart said the impasse was “a troubling development” on an important project.

“I’m actively calling government ministers and MPs to understand what has changed here,” the provincial minister said in a statement. “Everyone had a good sense of what the timelines were when the federal government announced support for the project back on April 27, 2017, and that some adjustment under this program would be required.”

Vogt said he thinks Ottawa was aware when the deal was finally sealed last summer the Nov. 30 deadline would be impossible to meet. But he said the feds have clung to that requirement — perhaps fearing demands for extensions from project proponents across the country.

The Innovation Centre, when completed, is expected to attract more than 1,200 students and staff to RRC’s downtown campus. It has strong support from the Winnipeg business community and is seen as a key pillar underpinning the growing downtown hub of tech and start-up enterprises known as Innovation Alley.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca