An outdoor area of a new Winnipeg library was fenced and only has to be repaired four years after the construction of repairs.
The city of Winnipeg published a tender for renovation work on the outer disc and paved terraces in Bill and the Helen Norrie library. The construction of the 14,000 square meter building started in 2019 and cost $ 9.3 million.
The library, which is the subject of a lawsuit against three contractors in the building, was opened in 2021.
According to the tender, the work includes the removal and exchange of damaged wooden floor beams, rays and terrace paving stones. The contractor will also remove and rebuild the organic surface, replace the granular base under the deck and terrace and install new fishing pools, drain pipes and crying tiles.
Rating Evan Duncan, chairman of the real estate and development committee, said CBC News in an interview that the city and members of the public found “important defects” on the eastern side of the building.
He said there were considerable elevation – with regard to the upward movement of the soil or the foundation, which is typically caused by the expansion of the soil, which shows that an installation problem must be addressed.
Although the outdoor area was closed to the public, the library remains open.
“Just to assure the public that the building itself is safe,” said Duncan.
He didn't know when the terrace could be reopened or how much the repairs could cost.
The city commissioned the LM Architectural Group with the design of the building, the Gateway Construction to build it, and M. Block and Associates to ensure LM and the city of geotechnical analysis.
Last September, the city submitted an indictment to the King's Bank court, in which it did not require any damage to the library to be built and named the three companies as accused.
According to the statement of the claim, the city became aware of the accessibility of the interior and the external of the library in 2021.
The city said that it had expressed its concerns with the contractor LM, who dealt with some of the shortcomings but had not remedied most of the problems.
In 2022, the city found that swamp pumps ran excessively and bundle a water around the library, the parking lot and the street.
“During the review, the city found that geotechnical analysis did not consider the infiltration analysis appropriately and that the drainage infrastructure for and in the library was insufficient,” the lawsuit said.
Then the city found in 2022 that the deck dropped and wrapped.
“As a contract administrator, LM could not adequately inspect and supervise the deck construction and ensure that such a construction with the approved structural drawings does not identify the defects in the work of Gateway so as not to identify and steer these defects, and this gateway renovation of defect did not cover the defects.
The city says that it now has to pay repairs, temporary corrections and potential loss of use.
CBC News contacted all three contractors, but they were not immediately available for a comment.
No declarations of defense were submitted.