The City of Prince George has filed a lawsuit against the architectural firm hired to design the Canfor Leisure Pool, saying it was responsible for a three-week delay and added $1.3 million to the project's cost by shipping faulty steel beams to the site.
In a notice of claim filed Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, the city alleges HDR Architecture Associates Inc. relied on an out-of-date Master Painter Institute manual when considering the painting and priming of the beams. As a result, only a single coat of primer was applied whereas the current online copy of the manual called for two coats.
The city also claims an acrylic primer was used rather than a longer-lasting and more durable epoxy primer "especially in the context of a pool setting" and "with only a marginal up front cost savings."
And the city alleges HDR cut corners on the curing process in order to meet the Dec. 14, 2020 deadline for delivering the beams to the site. It says the primer had a 30-day curing period and is dependent on weather conditions but were delivered from Calgary and Edmonton within less than a week of having been primed and during wet winter conditions.
Arrival of the components began two days after the deadline and much of the material began to show signs of rusting. About a quarter of the beams were retained on the site and "erected immediately" and the remaining components were transported to local fabricating shops to have the rust removed and to recoat them with an epoxy-based primer. An epoxy-based primer was also applied to the beams that had been erected at the site.
On or about Jan. 14, 2021, an HDR representative admitted that the firm made a mistake by relying on outdated reference materials, according to the city.
The remediation of the failing components resulted in a three-week delay in the project, the city says in the claim.
Using the appropriate primer in the first place would have increased the project's cost by $120,000, the cost of the delay amounted to $100,000 and the total net cost to the city in remediating the beams was about $1.3 million, the city says in the claim.
The pool opened in mid-November, a month later than expected, and at a cost of $39.1 million, about $2.9 million more than budgeted
The city is claiming breach of contract against HDR and is seeking general and special damages, costs and other relief as the court seems just.
HDR has not yet filed a response and the claims have not been tested in court.
