The developer behind the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters project said internal fighting between designers, builders and bureaucrats threatened to derail it.
“That project was doomed because everybody was challenging who was the bigger boy in the room, and that didn’t go far, did it? And the WPS was let down by that process,” Armik Babakhanians testified at a public inquiry panel Friday.
Babakhanians, through his companies Caspian Projects and Caspian Construction, was the key contractor behind the headquarters project. He testified for the second day Friday.
RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS
Armik Babakhanians testified for the second day Friday.
Problems with the development at 245 Smith St. have plagued city council for years. The building suffered repeated delays, change orders and cost overruns nearing $80 million before it opened in June 2016. It was later subject to two civil lawsuits, an RCMP investigation and an external audit that found the project had been severely mismanaged.
The City of Winnipeg asked the province to arrange the inquiry to review where the development went wrong.
Babakhanians pointed the finger at others involved in the project, saying they did not understand the needs of the WPS and the complex construction requirements involved.
Instead, they were focused on determining the maximum amount the project would cost, before the design and construction plans were fully settled, he said.
“I can write a book or two on this project — how misunderstood the whole thing was,” Babakhanians said.
“Some bunch of bureaucrats are sitting there and putting a cap without asking the WPS, ‘What are your requirements? What are your conditions for today and 50 years from now?’ That is wrong.”
One of the most pressing issues was the need for WPS to have a gun range, Babakhanians said.
The inquiry previously heard that initial plans considered building the range on the roof of the headquarters, but that was later scrapped.
Inquiry counsel Heather Leonoff spent the morning walking Babakhanians through emails he exchanged with project stakeholders during the design phase, including one in which he threatened to walk away from the project if the city did not cut ties with construction consulting company Aecom.
Babakhanians said he believed the company was “incompetent” and had grown frustrated due to delays and other issues.
Under questioning from Leonoff, Babakhanians acknowledged he prefers to have as much control over his projects as possible.
“I have a certain way of doing it, and it has worked for 35 years,” he said. “I get things done.”
Aecom did eventually leave the project and the city brought on Peter Chang and Patrick Dubuc as project consultants.
Both men had existing relationships with Babakhanians, and once they were in place, he felt there was a “sliver of hope to get this project moving,” he said.
Chang, Dubuc and Babakhanians were later among the many defendants listed in a wide-ranging lawsuit filed by the City of Winnipeg surrounding the project.
During his previous testimony, Leonoff asked Babakhanians about an email he sent to himself in February 2011, following a meeting with the city’s then-deputy chief administrative officer, Phil Sheegl, in a Winnipeg parking garage.
He said he used the email to make a note of their conversation, which made him uncomfortable.
Part of the email outlined the amount of money Sheegl apparently planned to pursue from city hall for the headquarters budget, totalling $126 million.
“However, I think he wanted 2+2 for sam and phil but the rest for us,” Babakhanians wrote in the email to himself. He also noted that he would tell one of his partners in the project that the cost was $122 million, all inclusive.
“This will remain confidential for ever,” he wrote to himself.
Leonoff grilled Babakhanians on what he meant by that, asking whether the former CAO asked him to split $4 million between Sheegl and former mayor Sam Katz as “as a thank-you gift” for helping Caspian get the project.
Babakhanians said the meaning of that line was not clear to him.
“I categorically reject that. I’m going to go on the record to say I work hard enough. I don’t have to pay people to work,” he said.
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In 2022, a court ruled Sheegl had accepted a $327,000 bribe from Caspian and ordered him to pay the city compensation, with that email noted in the decision.
Sheegl and Babakhanians have both denied the money was a bribe. Each man has testified that it was payment for a parcel of land in Tartesso, Ariz.
Babakhanians will continue to testify throughout the day. His testimony follows that of other key players in the project, including Sheegl and Katz.
More to come.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
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