THE Albury airport terminal upgrade cost has blown out on original estimates.
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Albury Council on Monday night will vote to accept a tender of almost $4.5 million from Southern Cross Developers after initially planning to spend only $1.1 million after securing a $3.6 million grant from the NSW Government in late 2015.
Works include an expansion of the arrivals hall with an additional baggage carousel and creation of an elevated mezzanine level within the existing departures lounge for passengers and a meeting room.
Following detailed design work it was agreed there would be greater benefits in expanding the ground floor of the terminal building with the introduction of the mezzanine level.
As part of the detailed design it also became evident the cooling-heating systems for the entire terminal building were disjointed, in poor mechanical condition and highly inefficient.
A replacement system was estimated to cost $1.4 million and the bulk of the amount has been included in the council's draft budget for next financial year.
Revised estimates of the work ranged between $8 million and $7.9 million and subsequently a planned upgrade of the cafe area was dropped from the plan.
But the tender was highly competitive with three of four short-listed companies coming in well under the construction budget of $5.85 million and well below the estimated $8 million price tag.
As a result, the cafe upgrade will now go ahead with the council to also vote on allowing general manager Frank Zaknich to negotiate a "post award variation" to take advantage of the circumstances including the job needing to be completed by March next year.
Southern Cross Developers is located in South Albury and recently built council's $2 million recycling centre.
Other recent projects include the $10 million Quest apartments within the old Woolstore building.
It has also nominated a practical completion date of March 5 next year.
Under the NSW Government funding agreement the project has to be finished by March 31.