Ontario Construction News staff writer
Unexpected geotechnical issues have increased the budget for the new Ottawa Police Service (OPS) south facility in Barrhaven by $10 million, according to a recent report to the Ottawa Police Service Board’s finance and audit committee.
The project, which totals $187.8 million and is being constructed at 3505 Prince of Wales Dr., faced significant difficulties during the foundational stage when piling work uncovered “soft soil” that wasn’t fully identified during initial pre-construction tests.
“While pre-construction geotechnical testing was conducted in line with leading practices, the full extent of below-surface conditions became apparent only during piling work,” stated OPS in a project update.
The additional $10 million has been taken from the project’s contingency fund, which was recently revised to about $14 million to manage the sub-surface challenges and their indirect effects on the construction timeline. Despite this increase, officials insist that the project is still within its overall adjusted budget.
This 218,000-sq. ft. facility is being built by Broccolini Construction. As of March 2026, approximately 73 percent of it is complete.
The site work has moved past the difficult sub-structure phase and into interior fittings. The building envelope, including roofing and exterior walls, has now been finished. Structural steel and concrete reached a major milestone with a “topping-off” ceremony in May 2025; this also marked when the service officially pushed back the opening date to May 2027-one year later than initially planned.
“Construction has moved to the interior, where we are seeing rapid progress on interior partitions and the start of finishing,” noted the committee report. “Tenant Fit-Up activities are progressing well leading into procurement packages for furniture and equipment.”
The Barrhaven station’s budget has nearly doubled since it was first approved in 2021. Initially estimated at $118.2 million, costs rose to $178 million in 2023 due to delays caused by COVID-19 and subsequent inflation in construction costs.
The latest increase to $187.8 million reflects added complexities from soil remediation efforts as well as Phase B.2’s inclusion, which introduced a second floor to accommodate changing operational needs.
“The implications of having paused it contributed to millions and millions of dollars in cost escalation,” board member Marty Carr remarked during an earlier update on restarting the project. “The impact of those delays were significant.”
Once completed, this new building will replace outdated Greenbank and Leitrim stations that Police Chief Eric Stubbs described as being “significantly past their life expectancy.”
This new south facility aims to serve as a central hub for OPS operations with:
Frontline operations and traffic unit A new 9-1-1 communications center Marine, dive, and tactical units A collision reporting center and records management unit
Chief Stubbs assured the committee that all foundational problems have been completely addressed. “Obviously, they’re not going to build… unless there’s the solid base that’s up to code, up to standard,” said Stubbs. “They did find issues and resolved it and we have a healthy building.”
Construction progress photos are from a video taken by Ottawa Police this winter.
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