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Belleville council approves design firm for new police station

City council debates on $1.5 million dollar costs for designing a new police station. Photo by Nikolai Karpinski

City council debates the $1.5 million costs for designing a new police station Monday night. Photo by Nikolai Karpinski, QNet News

By Nikolai Karpinski [1]

BELLEVILLE – City council has approved a $1.5 million fee for architectural design of the city’s new police station.

The expenditure was approved in a close 5-4 vote that followed a lively half-hour debate at Monday’s council meeting.

The firm Shoalts and Zabak Architects Ltd [2]. of Kingston was awarded the contract for designing the new station.

The debate before the vote was because the firm had quoted a price this past May that was $400,000 lower.

Coun. Mitch Panciuk said the firm was being “greedy” by raising its price so much.

City chief administrative officer Rick Kester said the price hike was the result of an acoustic design that wasn’t part of the original quote, but he added that this didn’t account for the entire cost increase.

More to come.