The City of Estevan has issued the request for proposals for the demolition of the venerable Civic Auditorium.
The Civic has been closed since last November, and its fate was sealed back in January when the city couldn’t secure a company that would insure the building.
According to the request for proposals (RFP), which is found in last week’s city page, the city is looking for a contractor that can demolish, remove and appropriately dispose of the building and components and materials. The RFP states the Civic is approximately 40,000 square feet.
They would also have to remove all subsurface components, underground water and sewer lines to within one metre west side of the main lobby doors; clay fill material trucked in at the proponent’s expense, as the city will provide the clay material only; and fill material and gravel cap to achieve 95 per cent proctor compaction, to ensure no rutting with heavy equipment upon completion of the final grading.
The target completion date for all of the work is no later than June 15.
Ludwig said there has been a delay with the demolition of the building because inspectors found a fair amount of asbestos in the building after the Civic was closed.
“We have to get that removed first,” said Ludwig.
A contractor is expected to begin removing the asbestos this week, and the cleanup should take two or three weeks.
“We have to cover our bases environmentally, and … we had people in to check,” said Ludwig. “As soon as we found out that there was asbestos, of course then we notified the right people.”
The city was surprised to find so much asbestos in the arena, Ludwig said. He believes that when the Civic was constructed in 1957, people weren’t as concerned about it as they are now.
“It was widely used in many applications, one of them covering the pipes to keep them warm,” said Ludwig.
The mayor stressed there haven’t been any other reasons for delays for issuing the RFP. Most of the items the city wanted out have been removed from the building.
There will be a mandatory site viewing April 20 for those interested in handling the demolition work.
Facilities manager Rod March is scheduled to take the interested parties through the building, answer questions and take care of any concerns.
Proposals will be accepted until April 27.
Ludwig anticipates demolition work will begin in early May.
