The City of New Westminster is addressing a number of “minor” deficiencies in Anvil Centre and its office tower.
Anvil Centre, the city’s new cultural and conference centre, opened in September 2014. An office building has been constructed atop the civic centre.
Last March, the city announced it had sold the office tower to 777 Columbia Street, a company jointly owned by Joseph Segal’s Kingswood Capital Corporation and Suki Sekhon’s CRS Group of Companies.
Sekhon told The Record that he isn’t concerned about the deficiencies.
“It’s typical with a new building,” he said. “They kind of rushed the civic centre a bit and left the tower because they were wanting to get the civic centre open. I think it was just timing on that part to get everything done.”
Sekhon said the contractor is still working to address any remaining deficiencies, but much of the work has been completed.
“They were all minor things, nothing major,” he said. “It’s like $200,000 or $300,000 on a $40-million deal. It’s nothing that’s worrying us at all.”
In March 2014, the City of New Westminster announced it had sold the office tower for $36.5 million. Under the terms of the deal, the purchasers would pay for the office tower in installments.
- A non-refundable deposit of $5 million was to be provided at the time the purchase and sale agreement was signed.
- An additional $6.5 million was to be provided at the time of closing on Dec. 31, 2014.
- Within three years following the Dec. 31, 2014 closing date, the purchaser will provide the city with the remaining $25.25 million, with interest.
Mayor Jonathan Cote said the purchasers held back $1.5 million of the $6 million that was to be provided by Dec. 31, 2014 when the sale closed.
“It was part of the original agreement where if there were deficiencies with the building that the purchaser could put a holdback on a portion of the appropriate portion of the deposit,” he said. “Right now the building has been completed and we are still working through the deficiencies with our contractor, both with Anvil Centre and in the office tower. Once those deficiencies have been resolved, the rest of the contract will be paid.”
Deficiencies are being corrected in Anvil Centre and the Anvil Centre office tower.
“It is just a matter of finding out what was missed, what needs to be fixed,” Cote said. “When you build a project of this scale, it is not unusual to have to work through a list of deficiencies, and the city is actively doing that. We are hoping in the near future to be done that process.”
Terry Atherton, the city’s manager of civic buildings and properties, said the Anvil Centre office tower deficiencies related to items such as the lobby directory and intercom, landscaping and irrigation on roof decks and ceiling in the lobby and on the14th floor. He couldn’t put a price tag on the deficiencies, but said it didn’t amount to the $1.5 million that had been held back by the purchaser.
Some deficiencies have also been found in the Anvil Centre civic facility, such as issues with door locks, some mechanical and electrical matters and sidewalks, Atherton said.
“Some of them are cracking – just small cracks,” he said. “They sawcut lines in between them and sometimes there has been cracking going across there.”
Atherton didn’t have an itemized list of the costs associated with repairs to the deficiencies, but said they’re not significant.
“It’s normal,” he said about deficiencies. “Some times deficiencies take three or six months to finish. The bigger the project, the longer it takes.”
