Monday, February 19, 2007

Translation Required


I need someone who is learned in Doublespeak to translate into English the following City agenda item tonight.

It is part of the report telling us that our big Star headlined $48M arena is now costing us a lot more money a la LaSalle. The cost now is, without adding in the McHugh road work,

$63,171,387

Oooops, I forgot the $1,750,000 contingency

$64,921,387

If someone would be good enough to tell me what this means, I probably can add in another $2.5 million, I think:
  • "#12 Land Purchase Cash Outlay

    The City obtained the east side land through an exchange of City owned property resulting in a net incremental City cost of $1,400,000 in the form of a credit against future development. Additionally, although not a direct cost to the project, there is an opportunity cost of approximately $2,500,000 relating to the value of the City land that was part of the exchange."
A couple of silly points that I noticed:
  • I hope X-ray eyes were working and that there is no contamination on the site since if that happens do you really think that $629,915 is enough.
  • I wonder if the site servicing costs include the cost for the grading which will "hopefully" prevent any Little River water run-off problems
  • Fit-up costs have to increase by around $600K for retail space, extension of ticket sales space for the Spits (why can't they pay for that?), possible Sports Hall of Fame but since the work does not have to be done now, the City does not have to include it but can do it later I guess. What other costs can be ignored now this way?
  • I thought that "Francis said the estimated cost to remove the material [on the Farhi site]is between $150,000 and $200,000. "Obviously the cost will be applied to the project budget." Gee, I thought the cost a few weeks ago was only $200K with Farhi agreeing to pay $100K for an extension not to close the deal for up to 3 years. Fortunately the Executive Director of Parks & Facility Operations with his X-ray eyes working now said the $300K was fine now.
  • Costs go up by over $600K to "elevate" the arena since higher costs would have been paid due to elevation differences with the McHugh extension but then funny math takes over to reduce the costs because the other project does not have to pay it out HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Whew another $1.5 saved since post construction interest fees until the torrents of money come in will not be charged to the project but to the City's Operating budget.
  • Hey it's interesting that the City originally agreed to pay for the Jumbotron in the lease. Didn't the Spits say that they were going to buy a Jumbotron on Ebay? They must have bought it already since when I went to the Ebay site back in October, there were none for sale. [I wonder what other surprises are in the lease that we cannot get access to without a MFOIA application]
  • Read about the possible factors that could increase the price too on Page 9 of the Report

Oh it's too much for me... go to http://www.citywindsor.ca/DisplayAttach.asp?AttachID=7087 and you can read the report for yourself.

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