The Shell Place construction included cost overruns, but these added expenses were recently approved by the council. Just days before the facility was set to open to the public the project budget had a $4.3 million deficit due to cost overruns. Last Tuesday the RMWB council voted on a capital budget amendment which would increase the Shell Place project grant by the deficit amount. The amendment passed, and the reason for the deficit was cited as multiple cost overruns, but according to the RRC the main reason for the extra costs was increasing the LEED sustainable building certification from the Silver level to the Gold level. According to RRC capital projects and procurement director Rachel Orser “The RRC is confident that we would not be here tonight with this budgetary amendment had we remained in the original scope of building to LEED Silver.”

Some council members were upset that the Shell Place cost overruns were not addressed sooner. The work was already completed before the capital budget amendment was submitted, and some members felt that there was little choice at that point. Coun. Tyran Ault stated “My frustration is that we were saying ‘on time, on budget’ … and now we’re three days away from the ribbon cutting and we’re asking for money. I guess we have to approve it now … we have no choice in what we do here.” According to Michael Cachia, board chair for RRC, “We were trying to find alternate sources of funding before we came back to council to ask for it. We did remind council again and again that we still had an outstanding liability that someone would have to take on.”