The City of Winnipeg is suing various contractors over alleged shoddy work on the Bill and Helen Norrie Library.
The statement of claim, filed in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench in September, alleges three contractors — LM Architectural Group, Gateway Construction & Engineering Ltd. and M. Block & Associates Ltd. — are responsible for accessibility and drainage flaws at the Grant Park library branch.
The lawsuit seeks general and special damages, interest and for Gateway to abandon its lien claim on the city-owned land.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES
The city of Winnipeg claims it discovered numerous aspects of the Bill and Helen Norrie Library were not compliant with the city’s accessibility standards.
In 2018 the city contracted LM to design the library, Gateway Construction to build it and M. Block & Associates to do a geotechnical analysis of the project, the lawsuit says.
The 14,000-square-foot single-storey library at 15 Poseidon Bay opened its doors in 2021. The $9.3-million building, which replaced the River Heights Library on Corydon Avenue, was named after Bill Norrie, who served as Winnipeg mayor from 1979 to 1992 and died in 2012.
His wife, Helen, worked as a librarian and teacher.
The lawsuit alleges that in 2021 the city became aware of concerns about accessibility of the interior and exterior of the library. The city claims it discovered numerous aspects of the library were not compliant with the city’s accessibility standards.
A range of accessibility flaws pertaining to doorways, accessible parking stalls, signage, lighting levels and study-desk heights were found to be insufficient or did not meet requirements, the city claims.
The concerns were raised with LM, which addressed some but failed to remedy all the deficiencies, the lawsuit says.
The city further alleges in 2022 it discovered the sump pumps at the library were running extensively and an excessive amount of water was being discharged from the library.
“Upon review, the City determined that the Geotechnical Analysis failed to adequately consider seepage analysis, and that the drainage infrastructure designed for and constructed at the Library was inadequate,” the lawsuit states.
The infrastructure caused water to pool outside the library, in the parking lot and nearby street, the court papers say.
Later, in mid-2022, the city discovered that the building’s deck was sloping and heaving, according to the lawsuit.
“As contract administrator, LM failed to adequately inspect and supervise the Deck construction by Gateway and ensure such construction was compliant with the approved structural drawings, failed to identify the defects in Gateway’s workmanship in relation to the Deck construction, and did not take reasonable steps to identify and direct that Gateway remediate of the defects,” the Sept. 27 court filing states.
The city claims it now has to incur costs to fix the property’s drainage issues and investigate and remediate any other possible deficiencies.
No statement of defence has been filed by any of the three named companies.
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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