A $100,000 dishwasher in Anvil Centre kitchen will get dishes shiny and clean after big bashes at the conference centre.
The city’s 2015 capital plan, which includes funds for city facilities, vehicles, equipment, annual maintenance and transportation infrastructure, includes funds for a new industrial model kitchen dishwasher for catering services at Anvil Centre. The kitchen’s existing smaller dishwasher will be relocated for other uses, such as washing bar glassware.
“I had no idea a dishwasher could possibly cost this much,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote, when asked about the appliance. “Apparently, in a full catering kitchen, not unlike what you would see in a restaurant, it would be along those lines.”
Cote said need for an industrial model dishwasher arose out of the city’s decision to include a full-service catering kitchen in the facility, rather than the warm-up or servery kitchen that was initially proposed.
“The staff that we have hired to run the convention centre strongly advocated to make those changes, saying that it would be far more beneficial to the centre and it is a lot easier to run as an operation and would lead to a better catering deal,” he said. “The argument seemed to make sense.”
Staff has told the mayor it would take people three days to wash all the dishes generated by an event attended by 300 to 400 people, but they would be done on the day of the event with an industrial dishwasher.
“I am comfortable with that,” Cote said. “I’m not looking forward to the headline: $100,000 dishwasher, but I think it’s valid.”
Anvil Centre, a civic and conference facility, opened at 777 Columbia St. in September 2014. The 2015 capital budget includes other expenditures related to Anvil Centre, including $1 million for a restaurant; $100,000 for a potential property acquisition (this relates to potential costs that may result from the expropriation process that was started years ago); $149,000 for creating workshop space in Anvil Centre for working on and preparing museum exhibits; and $450,000 for construction of a corridor between the Anvil Centre lobby and the office tower lobby.
According to Cote, a corridor between Anvil Centre and the Anvil Centre office tower has been in the budget for a while, but wasn’t something that was included in the building’s original design.
While in negotiations about the sale of the building, he said the purchasers required that a corridor be created between the restaurant, office tower and Anvil Centre lobby spaces as it would make the building operate more efficiently.
“That corridor wasn’t there before we had the purchaser,” Cote said. “This was something we discussed during the negotiations to sell the building. One of the conditions for them to buy the building was that this corridor be put in.”
As part of this year’s budget process, staff presented council with the long-range capital plan that includes $47.7 million in projects in 2015. City council generally supports the capital plan, but voiced concerns that this year’s plan included funds for a replacement for Massey Theatre and a new animal shelter.
“Both of those projects are still strongly supported by council,” Cote said, “but I think there was wanting to be a bit of a reality check in terms of when that should actually be put into our capital plan, given that both of those projects are most likely not going to be moving forward in this calendar year.”
The plan included $1 million to partner with the school district to reconstruct Massey Theatre as part of the New Westminster Secondary School replacement project and $1.2 million to relocate and construct a new animal shelter and tow yard. Council passed a motion asking staff to review the capital budget plan and move the projects into the five-year capital plan to better reflect a more realistic timeline for their implementation.
Some of the big ticket items in this year’s capital plan include: removal of the western portion of the Front Street Parkade ($3.5 million); Anvil Centre restaurant ($1 million); city hall renovation and seismic upgrade ($2.5 million); Quayside to Queensborough pedestrian overpass – a multi-year project that includes casino funding ($2.5 million); rail crossing upgrades ($500,000); pay station parking system expansion through the city ($644,000); replacement of a street sweeper ($325,000); replacement of two fire trucks (two trucks each budgeted at $810,000); construction of the pedestrian overpass on Fourth Street to the waterfront and Westminster Pier Park ($806,000); replacement of the original turf carpet on Mercer field ($900,000); energy conservation measures for civic facilities ($300,000); and park site development for the new park at the former Saint Mary’s Hospital site – now Qayqayt Elementary ($347,000).
Other components of the capital plan include a planning for the Canada Games Pool and Centennial Community Centre; relocating the city’s emergency operation centre to the Glenbrook fire hall (which requires some upgrades and renovation to the hall); renovations in the police station to provide more work stations for police officers; and hazardous materials response initiatives.
On the parks front, the capital plan includes: Moody Park field light replacement ($1 million); refurbishing of the Sapperton Park playground and spray pool ($650,000); reconstruction of the Moody Park spray pool ($586,000); redevelopment of the Moody Park playground ($366,000 – partially funded by development cost charges); reconstruction of the tennis courts in upper Hume Park ($126,000); and repairs to the Queensborough Community Centre front driveway to address “slippage” along the draining canal due to pile driving for the expansion of the community centre ($187,000).
