Construction work on some key thoroughfares through Fort Frances continues to progress this summer, but it will still be a few months before traffic can flow across town without the detours drivers have become used to.
Roadwork along Third Street West started last summer, where repairs and reconstruction were made from the Central Avenue intersection to Cornwall Avenue. This year, the same type of work is being picked up where it left off, from Cornwall to York Avenue.
Scott Street is seeing a similar repair project that was broken into two phases. The first includes finalizing concrete curbside work along portions of the road worked on in 2025 and storm sewer maintenance on the corner of Frenette Avenue. The second involves storm sewer and catch basin installations. Both of these projects involve digging up the road to access underground infrastructure.
“With Scott Street Phase 1 and Third Street, the reality of it is that the work that was completed last year needs to get surface asphalt as well,” Infrastructure and Growth Manager Travis Rob told The Times.
“There’s quite a bit of asphalt that gets put down, so once we are in a stage of starting to place asphalt, that is a big undertaking, just given the length of both those projects,” Rob said.
“There’s a certain amount of the road base that needs to get built up before they can do curb and gutter,” Rob said. “They’ll work on bringing the granular materials in, build up the road base subbase until they’re at the point of being ready to put in curb, gutter, sidewalk and driveway aprons. Then the concrete crew comes in. When that’s happening, there’s not a lot of else that can be happening onsite.”
There isn’t an exact end date for the road construction on Scott or Third Streets. However, Rob anticipates completion of both sections in about two months.
Things may seem to be slowly puttering along for people frustrated with detours in town. However, there are a limited number of contractors in the district who can do the work, and most municipalities aim to complete projects around the same time of year.
“You’re at the mercy of every other road job that’s in the region,” Rob said. “There’re only a couple of subcontractors that do curb and gutter; there are only so many subcontractors that do asphalt. You are a bit limited with that.”
Along with current construction on Scott Street, an additional project to extend sewer and water mains into Shevlin Woodyard will soon be starting down the road at the intersection of Reid Avenue. The need for the extensions arises from the plans of a developer, who has not yet been revealed, interested in building housing on the site.
“They’ll have to dig into the Reid Avenue intersection to do water and sanitary tie-ins,” Rob said.
Although there isn’t an exact start date set at this time, the work is planned to be completed along with the ongoing road work to avoid additional closures.
Council approved the unbudgeted capital expense for the Shevlin Yard tie-in after it was brought forward in an administrative report by Rob during the June 8 regular meeting of mayor and council. On July 7, tenders for the work were closed with the town having received five bids.
Last week, council opted to award the work to Bay City Contractors of Thunder Bay, who placed a bid totalling $557,119.38 after taxes, the lowest of five options ranging up to $994,840 plus HST.
