There's been a whole lot of shifting going on at the Squamish Adventure Centre.
The seven-year-old building's Douglas-fir timber frame is settling, Cameron Chalmers, the District of Squamish's general manager of community services, said on Tuesday (March 27). The natural process has left the municipality with a $21,800 bill.
"(The centre) was built out of very green wood," Chalmers told The Chief, noting that filling those gaps will save on energy bills. "This is scheduled maintenance."
It's not abnormal for maintenance fees attached to designer buildings to be higher than those for more traditional structures, Coun. Ted Prior told The Chief. For such a "signature" facility, Prior said he doesn't expect the Adventure Centre's annual expenses to be extraordinary.
"The Adventure Centre has taken a few years to get off the ground," he said. "It will carry itself one day."
In total, $58,050 worth of non-reoccurring upgrades related to the centre's maintenance were requested in the 2012 budget. That includes $2,000 in window tinting and a $30,000 bill to clean and stain the exterior woodwork.
The centre would also like to expand on the Adventure Centre theatre's capabilities, Chalmers said. The facility's current outdated technology is unable to show high-definition promotional videos. Such an upgrade would cost an estimated $20,000.
But to keep the 2012 district budget's effective tax increase at 7.5 per cent, councillors meeting as Committee of the Whole on Tuesday asked that district staff seek outside grants to complete the work.
The amount of income the centre generates is increasing, according to a staff report. The building's office space is all rented, equalling $18,000 per year. Money raised by events held at the building increased by 37 per cent between 2010 and 2011, with more than 70 occasions hosted by 45 different organizations. In total, the leases amounted to $93,000.
In 2010, revenue from leases and event rental fees totalled $76,000, according to the report.
