Scott Builders was awarded a $720,000 contract by Lacombe city council for roof work at the curling club and infrastructure building.

The contract also includes expanded washrooms to accommodate the number of workers at the infrastructure building.

According to a report to council from administration, the contract value is higher than the $637,000 budgeted but comes with third party inspections and warranty periods longer than 10 years.

Council did not have many companies to choose from. Scott Builders was the only one to make a bid when tendering closed on May 24.

Jordan Thompson, the city’s director of planning and operations, said once the project was put out to tender on May 3, they notified contractors who had previously worked with the city that the job was available.

They didn’t bid.

When asked why not, Thompson told council it was because they were busy with the construction season.

Chief administrative officer Matthew Goudy said he was disappointed the city didn’t get more vendors.

He said the request for proposals for the infrastructure building would normally have been posted earlier if it weren’t for a staffing shortage after the previous CAO’s departure. Remaining resources were directed toward working on the $15-million West Area Servicing project.

'I suspect they’ll step up'

A new roof for the curling rink will cost $366,000, with Lacombe County committing to pay for a third of the price.

The building was first damaged in a 2015 hailstorm but leaks were not noticed until last fall.

By last March, leaks were serious enough that the city hired a roofing company to assist with clearing the roof of snow and apply additional patches.

At the time, the city was told by its insurance company that hail damage was limited to only part of the building. Damage to the curling club was not noted in the adjuster's report.

Goudy was hopeful that the city might recover some of the project cost.

“We’ve had a great relationship with our insurer over the years. I’m expecting they’ll work with us on this as well. We’ll look at what other avenues would be available to us if we’re not successful here but I’m optimistic that we will be able to recover some of that cost,” he said.

“I think that they’ll see in this instance the damage was reported, it wasn’t visible at the time but it’s clearly become an issue for our community afterwards. I suspect they’ll step up and help us out.”

In the future, for high-value assets like this one, if there's doubt, the city would bring in a third-party inspector to assess damage, Goudy said.