There have been 29 plan-takers to date to manage the Cultural Hub at Tom Davies Square project’s construction.
Interested parties for the city’s request for prequalifications include construction companies from throughout the province.
Locally headquartered plan-takers include Chelmsford-based Bélanger Construction, Val Caron-based Metal-Air Mechanical Systems Ltd. and Sudbury-based Prosperi Co. Ltd.
The deadline to submit is Jan. 8, and Sudbury.com will continue to report on this process.
As with the downtown events centre/arena project’s management, requests for prequalification aim to determine which companies meet minimum requirements to submit bids. A request for proposals process follows, which evaluates bidders to determine which should get the job.
The winning bidder will manage the construction of the Cultural Hub at Tom Davies Square project, which will include the relocation of most municipal operations from 200 Brady St. to the upper floors of 199 Larch St. to make way for a new central library.
A new Art Gallery of Sudbury location will take up the bottom four floors of 199 Larch St., and other community groups would take residence at 200 Brady St., most notably the Sudbury Multicultural and Folk Arts Association.
The construction manager will provide consulting services to the city throughout the project design phase and will be responsible for the completion of construction, which includes all labour, material, equipment and supervision necessary, according to the request for prequalification documents.
The project’s total budget is $65 million, and it carries a hard construction cost of $58.5 million and $10.3 million of hard construction costs. Although this $68.8-million total exceeds the city’s $65-million budget, staff were directed in November to limit it to the $65-million approved.
Qualifications include such things as a minimum of 10 years of experience, having completed a minimum of three similarly complex projects, references willing to vouch for them and the corporate structure to manage the project.
At the latest update in late October, the Cultural Hub at Tom Davies Square saw architects in the “design development” stage, working with consultants, structural and mechanical engineers to add layers of technical design to work done thus far.
During 2025 budget deliberations earlier this month, the city’s elected officials added some complementary projects to the Cultural Hub beyond the scope of the above-cited tendering process, including digitizing paper records at Tom Davies Square to help free up space in their shift from 200 Brady St. to 199 Larch St. to make way for the library.
They also approved $4.8 million in work to the Tom Davies Square exterior facing Paris Street, which includes accessibility components such as ramps.
Project design concepts by Teeple Architects, Two Row Architect and Yallowega Architecture, and renderings by redknot Studio/Guido Chiarito were released in September.