City officials uncertain but optimistic about Labour Day Classic

(Update)

There’s still no clear answer tonight about whether Tim Hortons Field be ready for the Labour Day Classic. In fact — the answer won’t come until late Sunday afternoon. And while the mayor and Ticats owner Bob Young were adamant the game would go ahead at Tim Hortons Field just a few days ago — today, senior building officials are saying there are still some major hurdles to overcome.

It really is the million dollar question because as you know every game not played at this field could cost the builder 1 million dollars.

The sign really says it all. At this point it’s only Tim’s Field. But city building officials and the fire department were on site today. They were testing the backup generators and the fire alarms. They were heard going off earlier. So we know they work. But there’s still a lot of work to be done.

It was Monday when both the mayor and Bob Young insisted the stadium would be ready for the Labour Day Classic: “Failure is not an option.” “We are very confident that we will be open for Labour Day.”

But today, Ed Vanderwindt, the chief building official for Hamilton, says there are still some major hurdles to overcome: “Staff will be there today inspecting three things. They’ll be inspecting the alarm system, they’ll be going around pulling all the fire alarms. All those handles you wanted to pull as a kid. They’ll be inspecting the sprinkler systems, so breaking a few hits. Make sure the water flows. The alarms go off. They’ll be shutting down the power on the site and seeing if the generator kicks in.”

The guard rails are to be delivered tomorrow and installed Saturday and Sunday.

Ed Vanderwindt: “They’re important for public safety and we’ll be checking the fire separations when they’re done and last of all waiting for all the architects and engineers letters to confirm the project’s been done.

That is scheduled for Sunday afternoon — giving the city just hours to issue a one day occupancy permit for Labour Day. But Vanderwindt says the city is prepared: “We actually have draft occupancy permits ready to go. It nothing else goes wrong on Sunday afternoon we are prepared to do that. But we need to see that the work gets done first.

And he admits, at this point, it’s all up to the builder, it’s out of the city’s control.

Up to ten people from the city, Pan-Am officials and the builders representatives all toured the stadium Thursday afternoon. We tried to get more answers about how the work is progressing but none of them were available.

We contacted the Rogers Centre and at this point they are not selling tickets to a Hamilton vs. Argos game on Tuesday which was one of the contingency plans the team had made. So that could be a good sign.