The province has selected preferred bidders to build stations on the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension, including a company that is being sued by Metro Vancouver for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Major construction of the 16-kilometer line is scheduled to begin this year.
The preferred bidder is a group of companies including ACCIONA Infrastructure Canada.
The company and Metro Vancouver are in a court battle over the troubled North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, which has caused the project to run billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. They blame each other for their failures.
The new $3.86 billion price tag is up from the previous estimate of $1 billion in 2022 and is almost eight times the initial estimate of $500 million. The district expects the plant to be “substantially complete” by 2030, with only “minor connection work” to be done over the next few years.
The partially completed factory at 1311 West 1st Street in North Vancouver will eventually serve the North Shore community and replace the aging 1961 factory located under the Lions Gate Bridge. become.
In 2021, Metro Vancouver terminated its construction contract with Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP, claiming the company had apparently “abandoned” the project, citing delays and rising costs.
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Under the original terms of the public-private partnership, the company would design, construct and partially finance the plant at a cost of $500 million, with an expected completion date of 2021.
Acciona sued Metro Vancouver in 2022, alleging that Metro Vancouver provided an inappropriate site and construction specifications that were “riddled with inconsistencies and errors” that required changes during construction. Ta.
Metro Vancouver later filed its own lawsuit, alleging that a confidential report containing the decision to terminate the contract and legal advice about future litigation was leaked to the company.
Neither claim has been proven in court.
— With files from Simon Little
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