B.C. Place is looking for a good roofer.
The B.C. Pavilion Corporation (PavCo), the taxpayer funded corporation that runs B.C. Place stadium, has placed a tender for replacement of the inflatable roof of the downtown Vancouver facility.
Last month, a $65 million dollar facelift was ordered for the 25-year-old stadium that will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Games.
PavCo will release the scope of work and instructions for bidders on November 3rd and contractors will have until November 17th to put together a proposal.
PavCo wants to replace the inflatable roof with a retractable version, with work to begin after the 2010 Olympic Games conclude.
Vancouver's Olympic organizers have been intimately involved in the upgrade plan, including replacing the roof. VANOC is chipping in $4 million dollars on top of the Crown Corporation's $65 million.
But both the corporation and government bristled at the suggestion that any of the $65 million dollars be considered an Olympic-related expense.
"It is work that we would do regardless of the Olympics," said PavCo chairman David Podmore. "This is the enhancement of the building for the next 25 to 40 years."
"Those upgrades and that work needs to happen whether we're having an Olympic games or not," B.C. Tourism Minister Bill Bennett told CTV News in September.
In May, Premier Gordon Campbell confirmed the stadium would get a new retractable roof to replace the leaky Teflon cover which was blown open in a windstorm in January 2007.
When the announcement was made to replace the roof, officials said it would save more than $600,000 annually in energy costs and operational savings because the stadium will no longer need air-lock doors.
The Vancouver Whitecaps soccer team welcomed the decision, saying it is in the process of signing a five-year lease that will make BC Place stadium a temporary home for the soccer club, starting in 2011.
The first covered stadium in Canada, B.C. Place, was built in 1983 to rejuvenate the False Creek area.
