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Local builders get Olympic job

Two local companies have landed a big contract to build the first homes at the athletes’ village.
1439athletes
Phase One An artist's rendition of what townhouses in the athlete's village will look like.

Two local companies have landed a big contract to build the first homes at the athletes’ village.

Glacier Creek Contracting and Murphy Construction, both based out of Pemberton, will be building the first 40 townhouses in the $130 million project, with the possibility of building more to come.

Glacier Creek will build 30 homes, while Murphy Construction will build the remaining 10 homes.

“They both showed lots of get up and go and drive and some good ideas on how to save money and do things efficiently,” said Neil Godfrey, vice president of the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation (WDC), the municipally-owned company charged with building the athletes’ village.

The decision to split the contract between the two companies was done in part to secure some added manpower for future sections of the village. Construction of 20 more units is expected to get underway by the end of this year.

“Also, they compete with each other so it keeps them both honest,” explained Godfrey.

Glacier Creek has extensive experience building affordable housing in the area, such as the Whistler Housing Authority (WHA) Beaver Flats building and the Pioneer Junction complex in Pemberton. But this kind of project, said president Eric Prall, raised the bar a little higher.

“It’s exciting to be involved with the athletes’ village for the Olympics,” he said. “We’re accustomed to doing a lot of this kind of work but this is definitely a little more exciting.”

Murphy Construction has less experience with affordable housing, said Godfrey, but their passion was convincing.

“They certainly showed lots of motivation so we wanted to give them a smaller number so that they could try it out,” said Godfrey. “Obviously we have a lot to build here over the next three years so we’re trying to build relationships with some good contractors who ultimately we see hopefully building a fair chunk of this stuff. Nothing’s guaranteed of course. They all have to be tendered out.”

Murphy Construction’s owner Graham Murphy was excited about the contract.

“The WDC has given me an opportunity but they also did their due diligence,” said Murphy. “They checked my company out. I went into it with an open attitude and they’ve given me an opportunity to shine.”

His company has been quietly operating in the area for 17 years and has roughly 30 employees.

Murphy is already working on Olympic projects through another company, Snow Mountain Projects. Together the companies are working on three buildings — a pump house, a valve house and a compressor building — on Whistler Mountain. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games (VANOC) has contracted out all three projects. Snow Mountain Projects is the general contractor with a focus on the mechanical side, while Murphy Construction is taking care of the construction of the buildings.

When asked how local companies can get involved in the Olympic boom, Murphy paused for consideration.

“There’s lots of opportunities out there for the Olympics that small companies should embrace and one of the big things that I’m enjoying about this is I’m able to give some of those companies an opportunity to work with me,” he said, underscoring the skill of the local sub-trades.

“Most of my trades or employees are either Pemberton or Whistler based.”

As he secures the contracts, the Olympic work can filter down to other local trades.

Murphy describes it as a jigsaw puzzle — the sub-trades and employees are the pieces of that puzzle critical to bringing the whole thing together.

The WDC has not negotiated a fixed price contact for the first 40 townhouses.

“What we’ve done on this first project, because it’s going to be a bit of a learning experience on how much these buildings really cost and how to save money and build them efficiently, we’ve gone under a different format which is more of a construction management operation,” said Godfrey.

That means Glacier Creek and Murphy Construction will tender the various parts of the project and, together with the WDC, will select the lowest prices.

“Hopefully once we get all that work through we can move into a fixed price contract with the next 20 (townhouses) and all the future projects will be more based on fixed price contracts,” explained Godfrey.

“In this day and age, with labour shortages and material prices varying a lot, this sort of way of managing a project is fairly common in that it’s hard for us today, for example, to fix a drywall price for drywall that’s not going to happen for six months,” he added. “It probably will enable us to save money at the end of the day.”

The first 40 houses are the biggest units in the athletes’ village. All are at least three-bedroom units, and up to 2,000 square feet. They represent 20 per cent of the overall athlete bed count of 2,050 that the WDC is responsible for delivering to VANOC for the Games.

Roughly 450 athletes will be housed in these 40 units, with each unit averaging between 10 to 12 athletes. There will be two athletes per bedroom and the living rooms and dining rooms will serve as bedrooms during the Games.

Glacier Creek and Murphy Construction have the contracts to retrofit the units after the Games by adding in kitchens and creating living/dining rooms as the units switch from athlete housing to employee housing for those on the WHA waitlist.

It is a large and complex project but Prall and Murphy are convinced it’s in good hands with the volunteer board of the WDC and its employees.

“Whistler Development Corp. has a very experienced development team out there and they’ve been great to work with,” said Prall. “All their actions show their experience. If you’ve done it long enough, it shows.”