Major cuts may be on the way for a planned $323 million city transit and fleet facility in the east end.
The draft 2025 city budget update calls for $150 million to be pulled from the project, however, few details have been publicly released about what would need to be removed or otherwise altered in order to make that happen.
“The design process … is continuing and there have been project scope refinements based on affordability,” wrote Antti Vilkko, the city’s general manager of facilities and energy management, in a statement to GuelphToday provided through city media relations staff.
The construction timeline remains unchanged, Vilkko noted, though the previously planned 40,000 square meter facility footprint is to be reduced.
No information was provided about how much it’s been reduced by or how, if at all, city services there or at other city facilities will be impacted by proposed changes. A question about how the $150 million figure was determined, even in general terms, went unanswered.
A report detailing the proposed changes won’t be presented to council until several months after the 2025 budget update is finalized. That report is expected to be released mid-next year, while budget confirmation is anticipated to happen within the coming weeks.
Spending on construction isn’t slated to begin until 2026.
The new facility is to be built on city-owned lands along Dunlop Drive beside the Waste Resource Innovation Centre, near the intersection of Stone Road East and Watson Parkway South.
Project costs were previously and mistakenly reported by GuelphToday as $201 million, though that was only for the Guelph Transit portion of the plan. The overall project budget, prior to the current proposal to scale it back, is set at $323 million, including $94 million to the fleet facility portion of the build and $38 million for electric bus charging stations.
If the currently planned cutback is finalized, the cost of the project will be $174.2 million.
According to the city’s website page for the project, which makes no mention of the latest planned cutbacks, the cost is to be 66 per cent covered by property taxes, 11 per cent through grants and 23 per cent by development charges.
This is not the first time the project has been scaled back.
Council directed city staff in 2019 to create a business plan for the project, which was then estimated to cost $200 million and include additional city departments and services and generally referred to as a centralized campus.
Following analysis of environmental and archaeological studies, city staff announced in January of 2023 the project would no longer include public works or building maintenance staff.
The project was formally approved for the first time, at $323 million, through the 2024 to 2027 city budget process last fall.
