A new Public Works garage in Chatham-Kent has more than doubled in price over the past three years.
Councillors peppered staff about the rise in cost at their Council meeting Monday night and were told that inflation is to blame.
The garage's price tag has ballooned from $2.75 million to $6.1 million.
Despite that, Council voted 17-0 to build the new garage at 65 Creek Road in Chatham.
Up to $2.6 million had to be transferred from the Bridge Reserve to finance the completion of the garage. Council was assured by Chief Financial Officer Gord Quinton that the funds will be replaced in the 2024 Multi-Year Capital Budget with no impact on future bridge projects.
The original estimate did not include items such as the new transformer and other utilities, furnishings, and contingencies, Director of Public Works Ryan Brown told Council. The administrative report stated the original estimate was done prior to the pandemic and included no "inflation escalators."
Brown said the size and scope of the building have not changed and the previous estimates were based on 2019 prices.
"One of the costs being utilities. We had to reroute gas lines and hydro and water to this building," said Brown. "We thought we'd be able to share them with the existing building but we couldn't. But the biggest driver of the cost increase compared to the original estimate is the ongoing inflation."
Quinton said the garage project price hike came too late to include in the 2023 budget and will go to next year's budget deliberations.
"What we're going to have to do is prioritize out of the 2024 Capital Budget the funding to finish this off and push other projects off [the budget]. There won't be any delay because of the Bridge Reserve. The reason the Bridge Reserve was picked is because it has the biggest cash balance right now," Quinton said.
Originally, the municipality planned to spend $3.5 million on the new garage ($2.75M+$750K from sale of old garage at 540 Park Avenue East).