Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #1385
FURLONG CONCERNED ABOUT MORE THAN CONSTRUCTION INFLATION PREPARING FOR 2006 CONSTRUCTION SEASON
The CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC) says the considerable size and number of large capital projects that are due to be built on the south coast of BC over the next few years are going to pose challenges for VANOC beyond cost control.
"We're in a frenzied marketplace for construction," John Furlong said, "Our worry, going forward, is labour availability, cost escalations, even having a place to house workers who will be working on the projects in Whistler."
The total cost of the Nordic Centre was originally budgeted at about C$100 million when the bid to host the Games was accepted by the International Olympic Committee, and the Sliding Centre at about C$60 million. But that was in 2002 dollars, as required by IOC bidding rules, and the sudden expansion in non-residential construction in the past 18 months, has forced an escalation of construction costs.
However, Furlong said the design of the Whistler Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley has been "tightened up dramatically" during the past few months in an effort to reduce construction costs. "We've reduced the complexity, changed the design a lot. We'll still have a fantastic Nordic venue, but we've tried to take out elements that are simply too challenging to build."
Furlong said the decision to make the ski jumps temporary, instead of permanent as urged by various athletic groups, means, "We've taken about C$5 million out of [the Nordic Centre cost] by building only the speed jumps that we need for the Olympic program, but there won't be summer jumps after the Games."
Furlong says work this past season on both the Whistler Sliding Centre (WSC) and the Whistler Nordic Centre (WNC) came in on time and slightly under budget. About C$6.5 million was spent by VANOC on this year's program on the steeply sloped WSC. Furlong says the contracting firm Emil Anderson and VANOC managed to reduce expenditures by about C$600,000 from what was expected to be spent. VANOC earlier indicated that about C$13 million was spent at the WNC so far.
Virtually all of the work done this past construction season -- the time that's bracketed by the area's heavy snowfalls -- has involved earthmoving, road-building and parking-lot preparation, along with construction of some compounds.
Furlong says the contractors used on both projects this past summer were well aware that the work had to be done properly. "They are very aware the work must be done well, and we must send a message to the world that we are on top of it, that it's under control. So far, our experience has been great."
VANOC is expected to issue more tenders in the next few weeks to deal with the major construction of the venues in the Whistler area, as well as other venue projects. Furlong says contractor proponents are being evaluated on more than just their pricing structure. "We are absolutely determined that no contractor will work on this project [the 2010 Games] who is not prepared to get into the trenches and work with us to make sure we get the most out of these projects that we can."
And, he added, "We have to get these [upcoming] contracts done early and buttoned down, to reduce the danger of possibly going up even further, and we have to continue to find the best people we can to work on these projects, to manage them, to secure them and to protect them."
The CEO said that VANOC has had discussions with the steel and concrete industries "to see if they can find ways to help us to reduce our costs," but he did not say what the outcome of the discussions, if any, might be.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 22, 2005
Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #1384
Here are three moguls we ran into today:
RICHMOND 2010 OVAL CONSTRUCTION TO START IN MAY
- Richmond City staff now expect major construction of the city's sports complex that will house the 2010 Winter Olympics oval to begin in May, starting in the 6000-block of River Road. A total of C$5.9 million has been spent so far on the project, including C$2.3 million for design, C$960,537 for site preparation and C$175,240 for public consultation. An initial C$500,000 was spent on the application process, and studies leading up to it. The building, budgeted at C$178 million is the largest building being erected for the 2010 Olympics. Richmond is building the 33,750-square-metre facility, which includes the 400 metre indoor track -- with the help of C$60 million from VANOC, and, at last word, expects to complete the complex in the fall of 2008. By the way, just one of the many ironies coupled with the project: the Richmond politician that was particularly critical of the amount of money being spent on trips by politicians and staff to Torino for the IOC's observer program and to see how other jurisdictions deal with skating ovals was councillor Bill McNulty. He's been named by Richmond council as the leader of the group that will be going to Torino in early February.
BC GOVERNMENT EXTENDS ALBERNI LIVE SITE SPENDING DEADLINE BY TWO YEARS - The BC government has approved an extension to the March 2006 deadline that originally required key upgrades to the Alberni Valley Multiplex, based on government funding of C$330,000 from its 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Live Sites program. The new deadline is March, 2008. The C$600,000 project was originally planned to start last summer, but was delayed for various reasons and is now not expected to begin until the spring, when the arena's ice is removed. However, the government, in late November, sent Port Alberni a cheque for the first installment of C$110,000 from the Small Business and Economic Development Ministry. The Live Sites Award program is intended to increase participation by B.C. communities in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The local Spirit of BC Committee, which receives organizational help from 2010 LegaciesNow, hopes to attract national Olympic teams to the Alberni Valley for training and competition between now and 2010.
TORINO SHOWS OFF TALLEST CAULDRON, OLYMPIC VILLAGE - The Torino Olympics Organizing Committee today -- with only 50 days to go -- held a ceremony to draw attention to the Olympic cauldron for its Games. The 57-metre tower, about the height of a 20-storey building, with the cauldron atop, is the tallest in Olympic history -- the Olympic Stadium is only 26 metres tall - and it can be seen from almost anywhere in the Italian city. It will be lit on February 10 during the Opening Ceremony of the Games. The cauldron is one of the ways in which a host nation expresses its culture, spirit and history. The cauldron stands on five long tubes with a diameter of 60cm, that swells to three metres. A sixth, central, tube starts at the base and goes up to the cauldron, widening in the last three metres to give the burners the space needed to produce the flame. The five outside tubes twist in the final section, and the cauldron itself has a twist to it. The flame, supplied with methane gas by supplied by Italgas, one of the Games' sponsors, is expected to rise to a height of about four metres. The ignition system is expected to be kept secret until the runner carrying the Olympic flame enters the building. The location of the cauldron tower was determined by visibility studies. See the RESOURCES section below for a link to a photo of it. Meanwhile the Torino Olympic Athletes village was completed today.
RESOURCES
A photo of the Torino cauldron:
www.torino2006.org/ENG/OlympicGames/news/news_ita150403.html
A satellite map showing the location of the Richmond complex that will house the speedskating oval:
maps.google.com/maps?q=6200+River+Road+Richmond,+BC,+Canada&t=h&hl=en
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 22, 2005
Morgan:News:2010 |General| #1383
BC CENTRAL ECONOMIST WARNS THAT LABOUR-COST INFLATION MAY SOON REPLACE MATERIAL-COST WORRIES FOR VANOC
The economic weather forecast for the construction industry in which the 2010 Winter Games will be built just keeps getting worse -- for the Games and any other big-ticket item on a fixed budget.
First it was the price of construction materials skyrocketing in the last year or so. On the horizon, the cost of labour may follow suit. That's today's news from the economic folks at the Credit Union Central of British Columbia (CUCBC).
For just about anybody else that isn't footing the bills, it's a boom time in British Columbia's non-residential construction industry, one that is straining the limits of BC's building-supply pipelines.
Writing in the CUCBC's publication "Economic Analysis of B.C.", economist Dave Hobden says today that spending on non-residential construction projects totalled almost C$10 billion in 2004 and is forecast to jump to nearly C$14 billion in 2007. That represents average annual growth of almost 13% from 2005 through 2007, compared with 5% average annual growth from 2002 through 2004."
Although Olympic construction spending is less than 1% of that and has virtually no effect on it, the other 99% has a significant effect on building the venues for the 2010 Games because it has to compete with all the other projects for labour and materials, and both are in short supply.
And so the CUCBC's news is not good for Olympic organizers who are worried that inflation in labour materials over the last two years has increased substantially, forcing them to apply to the federal and provincial governments to guaranteed the value of their 2002 pledges of funds be held through 2007, when the bulk of VANOC's building will be nearing completion.
But the outlook isn't good for VANOC either. Hobden notes that, "Total investment in non-residential construction is expected to keep rising, both in quantity and price, at least through 2007. Real investment growth -- net of price inflation -- averaged 2.4% per annum from 2002 through 2004. In comparison, CUCBC forecasts [that] real investment will grow at an annual compound rate of 7.3% from 2005 through 2007. In addition to real growth, price inflation on non-residential investment is forecast at an annual compound rate of 5.1% from 2005 through 2007, up substantially from 2.5% from 2002 through 2004."
In addition, "Indications are the cost of materials, especially steel and concrete, has risen faster than the cost of labour over the past year or two, although this may reverse in the next two years. CUCBC forecasts price inflation on total non-residential construction investment will be 5.5% in 2006 and 4.2% in 2007. Price inflation on building construction in Greater Vancouver alone is expected to be higher, at between 5% and 6% annually."
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 22, 2005
Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1382
BELL CANADA TO BEGIN LAYING TELECOM BACKBONE FOR 2010 GAMES BETWEEN VANCOUVER AND WHISTLER IN FEBRUARY
Bell Canada, the telecommunications sponsor for the 2010 Winter Games, says it expects to begin laying its new fibre optic cable system along the Sea to Sky Highway between West Vancouver and Whistler on February 14.
The fibre-optic network will carry TV signals from the 2010 Games in Whistler and the nearby Callaghan Valley to the Vancouver media centre and its attendant satellite farm, as well as hundreds of telephone and Internet services between the two centres.
Since a considerable portion of the Olympics revenue is generated by broadcasting of the Games, the fibre optic network will be critical to its success. It will also carry all the computer data generated by Games. The line will also serve the new Nordic resort and the Whistler Sliding Centre under construction by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC).
At the moment, the construction crews for those projects are relying on satellite-based telecommunications set up by Bell, particularly in the Callaghan Valley. In the years following, the fibre-optic line will continue to be a backbone of commercial and residential communications between Whistler, Squamish and Vancouver.
Laying down the communications backbone is a complex engineering job, with a batch of mundane trench-digging thrown in. The project requires trenches between three and five feet deep -- for the cable, its piping and assorted junction and access boxes -- to be laid the entire length of the 76-kilometre corridor. As it is being installed, it will also be placed alongside a set of well-used parallel railway tracks. And it will have to six streets in West Vancouver, from 13th to 16th streets, as well as Bridge Road and Ambleside Park.
In addition, the cable will be bolted to the side of 46 bridges and culverts along the route, and they total nearly two kilometres of work. And, as the job proceeds, the contractor will have to follow pages of instructions and requirements that stem from the regulations covering rail and road work, not to mention those of the various jurisdictions and other utilities that will be crossed in the process.
Also, the contractor will have to ensure that there are road and rail flagmen in place as the work proceeds, on a gruelling 10-on, four-day off schedule, in order to minimize the impact on traffic and maximize the timetable. Bell is supplying the materials for the piping that will hold the cable, as well as the cable itself, from a storage area in Squamish, which is roughly halfway between the beginning and the end of the cabling.
Bell says it will be taking any contractors interested in bidding on the work on a special train January 17 and a second run on January 18 so they can inspect the conditions where the fibre-optic lines are to be laid, but each contractor will have to pay C$1,000 just to board the train, and they'll have to get their proposals into Bell at its Calgary headquarters by January 25 if they want to be considered.
Bell say the three separate contracts for the work are expected to be awarded by the end of January. Time will be of the essence in getting the job done -- the cable needs to be in place to start carrying the communications traffic connected with the construction of the 2010 venues as work gets under way in the spring -- but the company is leaving it up to potential bidders to show them the estimated timetable, along with the projected cost.
The company this fall completed construction of its first Olympic-related, cellular base-station. The station is on Bowen Island, just north of Vancouver. The company is also working on a site at VANOC's Cypress Bowl venue, in preparation for work next year at the West Vancouver location.
BACKGROUND
- A fibre-optic cable is a form of network cabling that transmits signals optically, rather than electrically, like coaxial and twisted-pair cable. The light-conducting heart of a fibre-optic cable is a fine glass or plastic fibre called the core. The core is surrounded by a refractive layer called the cladding that effectively traps the light and keeps it bouncing along the central fibre. Outside both the core and the cladding is a final layer, usually of a plastic material, called the coat or jacket. Fibre-optic cable can transmit clean signals at speeds as high as two gigabytes per second. Because it transmits light, not electricity, it is also immune to eavesdropping.
- A high rail, also spelled 'hi-rail', is a special trolley mechanism that allows road vehicles, such as cars, trucks, pick-ups or vans, to drive on train tracks. The mechanism fits under the vehicle and the drive wheels of the vehicle propel it smoothly along the track.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on December 22, 2005
