Windsor hopes to make waves on aquatic centre.

WINDSOR, Ont. -- Progress on Windsor’s new downtown aquatic centre should happen quickly now that council has approved the business case, according to city administration.

“Now the real work starts,” said Helga Reidel, the city’s chief administrative officer.

Reidel said the next step will be to issue a number of requests for proposals on the design and construction of the $66.3-million project.

The first RFP could go out as soon as next week, asking for a technical team that will review project drawings and provide advice throughout the work.

“That technical team is expected to stay with us for the duration of the project,” Reidel said. Further reports on the project may be back before council in July.

Administration’s June 13 report included a colourful drawing of the centre’s family fun area and a suggested map of the site — but Reidel stressed that those illustrations shouldn’t be looked at as final layouts or blueprints.

“Those were just done internally, to give council an idea of the components,” she said.

As council directed on Monday night, the city will embark on a “design build” method for the aquatic centre, meaning that the firm ultimately contracted for the job will be designing the project as they construct it.

The advantage of this is speed: Completion will happen sooner than with other methods.

“It allows you to start the construction even when your design is not quite complete,” Reidel said. “We’re designing as we go.”

According to the June 13 report, timelines are “extremely tight” since the city hopes to have the facility ready for the 2013 International Children’s Games.

There will be four to six months for the RFP process, and construction will take 18 to 20 months.

“We’ll have a couple of winters we’ll have to deal with,” Reidel said. “Right now, we are 24 months away from our target date for completion, and we’re going to need all of that time.”

Reidel said groundbreaking for the aquatic centre could occur later this year, but it won’t happen until the fall or later. “It will be a cold weather groundbreaking, no doubt.”

Asked if there’s increased risk in going the “design build” route, Reidel said there isn’t any in terms of safety or liability, but it’s possible that decisions made during the process will add costs.

“However, we’ve tried to put steps in place to mitigate that,” she said. “In this type of process, there are some unknowns that get identified and clarified as you move ahead.”

She noted that construction of the WFCU Centre in 2006 also went the “design build” route. “That’s why we had very active steering committee on the project that met every month.... There was a continual stream of decisions that had to be made.”

An aquatic centre steering committee — consisting of five council members and the mayor — is expected to be established soon.