Premier Christy Clark blamed the private sector Friday for the government's decision to scale down the scope of the Wood Innovation and Design Centre.
Originally billed as an 11-story wood structure with a budget of more than $100 million, the project on the site of the old PG Hotel has turned into a six-story building costing $25 million.
"We were ambitious about what we thought we could make happen," Clark told the Citizen in an exclusive interview. "We structured it as a public-private partnership, we went out and asked for bids. What we have found in most of the public private partnerships we've done is that when we're ambitious we often find the private sector really surprises us with what they can do in the same budget. That wasn't the case with this project."
Clark had announced the more grandiose project during a 2011 visit to Prince George, but despite the significant changes she said the announcement two years ago wasn't premature.
"It was an announcement that we are going out to the market and seeing what the private sector is willing to do with us," she said. "We set out our goal, we set out some parameters and we said, 'see what you can do.' And the private sector came back with us and told us they couldn't do exactly some of the things we had envisioned, but we're getting it done."
Last month, the government awarded the design and build contract for the building to PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc. Construction is expected to begin this spring with a completion date targeted for the fall of 2014.
The building is meant to both showcase what can be built with wood and also serve as a home to UNBC researchers looking at new uses for wood products.
The project has been years in the making and at times has been mired in political controversy. It's at the centre of a pending court case between Northern Development Initiative Trust and Commonwealth Campus Corp. over a loan, purchase and sale agreement surrounding the development of the property.
Despite all that, Clark remains optimistic the centre will live up to its billing when completed.
"Prince George needs this to happen because we need to revitalize the downtown and we need to establish Prince George as the bedrock of our forestry industry - as the world's forest industry," Clark said.
