First condo owners could be in by Christmas

As owners toured the River Walk condominium project for the first time Saturday, they were told by contractors that move-in dates still were not set in stone.
“What we are telling people, what we are expecting to do, is to have [some] people moving in Dec. 20 on the bottom floors and between that and Feb. 1 have the rest completed,” Dan Reimer, senior project manager for Penn-co Construction Canada Ltd., said Saturday.
Originally, the Fort Frances Non-profit Housing Committee had asked for a Dec. 1 completion date for the 32-unit complex on Front Street. That date has been pushed back following delays due to weather and a lack of construction workers.
Bob Froese, project manager for the Fort Frances Non-profit Housing Committee, said Saturday that Mother Nature has played a big role in the delay.
“We had record rainfall which put construction back by two weeks,” he said, citing the flooding conditions experienced in June. “Then we had record low temperatures in October for them to deal with.”
“There was also a shortage of workers. The construction industry is very busy in Manitoba and in Northwestern Ontario,” Reimer added.
Reimer said they will be working with individual owners to determine who must be moved in as soon as possible and those who might prefer to wait.
As well, workers will focus on finishing the 20 pre-sold units, then completing those yet to be bought last.
In a perfect world, Froese said he would like to see the project completed on time.
Still, he said he’d rather have crews take their time to finish each unit with the quality owners deserve than to have them rush to meet a completion date.
“We’re only looking at a two-month delay on a $5-million piece of property,” Froese remarked.