An electric vehicle charging station that was built at the Municipal Library and Cultural Centre has yet to charge a single car, nearly nine months after the facility opened.
Contracted out to a company called PEP, the charging station was suppose to be part of network of electric vehicle charging stations located throughout Jasper. But over the course of building the library, which took five-and-a-half years to complete, the company went bankrupt.
Now the municipality is trying to figure out a way to get the charging station up and running in time for summer.
鈥淒uring the time that the library was under construction the equipment was bought for the charging station, but prior to the installation and initializing the software the company went bellyup and disappeared,鈥� said Mark Fercho, the town鈥檚 chief administrative officer.
He said the municipality is currently in discussions with Delnor, the contractor responsible for building the library, to find a solution.
鈥淩ight now the contractor is trying to resolve this at their expense,鈥� said Fercho. 鈥淲here this ends up remains to be seen, but at this time they are currently still working on it.鈥�
If Delnor can鈥檛 find a way to resolve the issue, he said it鈥檚 likely the municipality will find another company.
The municipality has been trying to reach a negotiated settlement with Delnor and Stantec, the architect and consultant on the project, since the library opened in June.
The library opened three-and-a-half years behind schedule due to construction blunders and was $1.5 million over budget.
In December, Fercho said he was close to reaching a settlement with Delnor, but not Stantec. On March 24 he said things hadn鈥檛 changed.
Currently there are four charging stations at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge and two at the Sawridge Inn and Conference Centre. There is also a charging station at Jasper Junior/Senior High School, but that station is for staff only.
For a map of charging stations across Canada go to: www.caa.ca/evstations/
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
