After gaining assurances that a newfound component of Wheeler Opera House renovations could not have been predicted during initial planning stages, the Aspen City Council on Monday raised the “overall budget authority” for the project by $665,000.
The increase, which passed 4-0, puts the total project cost at $2.89 million, 30 percent above the $2.23 million previously budgeted for the work. Councilman Adam Frisch was absent and unable to vote.
Project Manager Steve Bossart told council members that the extra work relates to problems that weren’t discovered until ACI was working on the project’s first phase: the “demolition” of the Wheeler’s basement, restaurant and retail area.
Those areas were not exactly demolished; to use Bossart’s term, they were “deconstructed” — meaning that nearly everything was taken out and stripped bare in order to make way for new restaurant equipment, flooring, mechanical and electrical systems, plumbing, ceilings, walls and the like.
Read the rest of this report at .
