Delays will see initial costs rise (#784)

In Issues #782&783 we focussed on the Pinjarra Aquatic Centre because it provides a reliable and timely benchmark for a possible facility in Denmark.  It confirmed that an identical facility built here (tendered mid 2012) would cost about $7.9M.  It is useful to compare this with a second benchmark  - this time provided for the Feasibility Study by Coffey Commercial Advisory [CCA].

The diagram below illustrates what was “under the hood” in the Site Plan (Issue #783).  This architect’s concept plan for the Denmark Aquatic Centre [DAC] was produced for the Feasibility Study, and used by CCA’s quantity surveyor to estimate the cost of a 6-lane 25m pool with a separate hydrotherapy pool and space for a small (un-costed) kids’ pool if required.  An 8-lane x 25m version of this plan was costed at  $8.95M.  Both configurations are split-level designs adjacent to the existing Denmark Recreation Centre.

The difference in construction cost between 6- and 8-lane pools is much smaller than might at first be imagined: most of the expense (70%) lies in the building shell itself – so it would be short sighted to restrict potential aquatic activities (main pool 300m² plus 40m² hydro) by thinking ‘small’ to save initial construction cost.

The variation between the estimates provided by these two benchmarks – one based on a real-life example adjusted for location and timing (2012), the other a sum of component estimates, each with its own error margins – is striking.  The Pinjarra design provides more than twice as much functional aquatic space (400m² plus 60m² plus about 250 m² for the leisure pool) in a building with a marginally smaller footprint than the CCA design.  Clearly the latter is rather generous in it its allocation of space.

Thus, DACCI believes that even with a modest separate kid’s pool, a slightly more generous hydrotherapy pool and an 8-lane 25m multi-functional main pool the capital cost could and should be capped at $8M if tendered in mid 2012.  In the most favourable grant scenario, we’d have to find 1/6th of this – say $1.3M.  Repaying this over 30 years would increase the rates of the hypothetical average ratepayer in Denmark by about 58¢ per week … less than a cup of coffee per month.

An argument often advanced in connection with the proposed swimming pool is that the town is too small and cannot afford to build it until the population becomes large enough.  Given that growth in building costs is expected to return to its long-term trend of about 6% within a couple of years, a community that is growing at under 3%, like ours, would be fooling itself if it believed this – the task of finding the capital cost gets harder rather than easier as each year slips by.  Now is the time to put up or shut up.

Cyril Edwards, Vice-President, DACCI

Bulletin #784, June 22 - July 6, 2011