New playhouse breaks ground, but still clouded by cost uncertainty

Article content

A ceremonial groundbreaking for Fredericton’s new performing arts centre was held Monday as cost uncertainty still hangs over the multimillion-dollar project.

Indigenous chiefs gave their blessing to a new glass, wood and brick building on the corner of Regent and King streets downtown, with local leaders delivering speeches on how important it was to have a venue dedicated to the arts to replace the more than half century old Fredericton Playhouse a couple of blocks away.

“We’re all dreaming together,” Mayor Kate Rogers told the crowd of about 75 spectators. “We’re doing the math, and it’s literally math on a project like this, and with times of inflation, those numbers just go up and up and up. And the levels of government came together but the board of directors of the playhouse said, ‘we’re going to put some in too. We’re going to lead a campaign, bring in people from the community to be part of this dream with us and bring it to reality.’ And donors, you’ve stepped forward.”

Donors have already contributed more than $5 million to the campaign, but no one will no one will know the true price of the total construction costs until tenders go out in May and the bids are inspected at closing in July, said Tim Yerxa, the Fredericton Playhouse’s executive director.

“Will costs go up? will things change?” Yerxa said, speaking with reporters afterwards. “Yes, through individual tenders, some will come in high and some will come in low. And we’ll have a lot more information on the costing when the tenders go out in the spring.”

A labour shortage, supply chain problems and the highest inflation in a couple of generations have ballooned the cost of many big projects in the region. For instance, the new provincial jail in Minto is expected to cost $66 million, more than double the original estimate when the project was announced back in 2021.

And just next door to the new performing arts centre – which doesn’t have an official name yet – work on the province’s new courthouse was temporarily halted last year when it only solicited one bid from the large Canadian construction firm EllisDon for $90 million for the project budgeted at $65 million. But in January, the province announced it had completed a second round of requests for proposals and awarded a construction management contract to Bird Construction.

Yerxa said EllisDon is the project manager on the new performing arts centre and will follow a construction management process that will see tenders for different pieces of the work go out individually.

A breakdown last fall showed the cost of construction was estimated at nearly $82 million, with several partners paying the bill. The city has promised $22.6 million, but is willing to go as high as $24 million. Ottawa and the province have said they’ll contribute a combined $46.6 million.

“If prices go up, we’ll be able to help,” Mayor Kate Rogers said. “We’re in for $22 million but we can go up above that a certain amount.”

The Fredericton Playhouse, a nonprofit, volunteer-led organization, is pledging $8 million from a community capital campaign and expects a further $2.3 million from the sale of its existing property at the corner of Queen and St. John streets. The Town of Oromocto will drop down another $100,000.

“We’ve budgeted for cost overruns,” said Yerxa, who first began talking about the project more than a decade ago. “We’ve anticipated inflation and escalation. The last time we did costing, we anticipated the timing of when the tenders would go out.”

In 2014, Fredericton council had promised $14 million toward what was then estimated as a $45-million project.

Several large construction vehicles were parked on the empty lot Monday, and Yerxa said underground work would begin immediately. Diamond Schmitt architects in Toronto have already completed the design work, which was based on public feedback and the advice of artists, businesspeople, cultural workers, local experts in building design and planning, and local Indigenous elders. It will feature an 850-seat main hall and a 300-seat flexible performance space with shared lobbies, amenities, and backstage functions.

The playhouse’s annual report in 2023 showed 56,000 spectators came through the old building, which was used nearly half the days of the year.

The bones of the new building, the steel and concrete, will start to go up in the fall and work is to continue until the first performance, expected in late 2026.

The city hasn’t decided what it will do with the old playhouse site, other than wanting what the mayor called a substantive development.

“What that will look like, we haven’t even gone down that journey. The focus has been entirely on making this new performance arts centre happen and getting it started because we have until late 2026 until the building has to be emptied out.”