Problematic planters at Devonian Gardens hamper park's reopening

Calgarians seeking shelter in the warmth of the Devonian Gardens this winter are out of luck.

The indoor botanical park was expected to reopen by the end of 2016,after closing thatJuly for crews to repair faulty planter beds. But the popular downtown spot remains closed, and the city now says the gardens may not reopen until July.

The delay comes five years after the city-owned park was fully redesigned and renovated at a cost of $37 million.

Doug Marter, manager of capital planning and infrastructure for Calgary Parks, spoke withCalgaryEyeopenerFriday about the delays.

The following is an edited version of the conversation.

Q: What's wrong with Devonian Gardens?

A: We're still trying to solve the problem with the leaks that have been previously identified. The problem that we're running into is Devonian Gardens is constructed on top of the main floor plate in the tower. It's about two-and-a-half acres, or 10,000 square metres, and the planters are on top of that floor plate. What's happening is there has been water leaking through and getting into the lower levels.

There were some initial planters that were identified early and were repaired, but we found signs of leakage in other planters. It's taken a considerable amount of time to try to track them down. The problem with this is water,while it's leaking from one particular location, will run all over the place. You can't say with any kind of certainty under that big an area that where you find the water is where the leak originated from. So it's taken some time to get that resolved.

Q: How much is the city going after the original designers to try to cover the cost?

A: That's something I really can't get into. We've certainly had discussions and we've been in those discussionsbut the reality of it is our first goal is to keep everybody working and get the work completed. This is a contractual obligation under the existing contract that binds the contractors and the City of Calgary.

Our ultimate goal is to have the contractors meet their warranty obligation, period, and that's what's happening. And they've been working diligently to do that.

Q: Can you tell people we're not throwing good money after bad? Is the contractor covering the cost to fix this problem?

A: That's exactly the case. This is a warranty issue, it's identified under their contractual obligation. They have an obligation to correct the deficiency.

Q: How confident are you the Devonian Gardens will reopen by the summer?

A: Barring discovering anything else unforeseen, we are pretty confident that is when it's going to be. In fact, as a result of meetings held yesterday, there is a good possibility that we may have sections of it open much sooner.

We understand the problem and it's a big inconvenience for Calgarians and we understand that. Calgarians have been very understanding up to this point, but we know, especially with the kind of winter we're having this year, that this is a big inconvenienceand certainly we are not happy about it at all. All I can do is ask Calgarians to bear with us while we work through this problem.

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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener