Duane Hicks
Work on the Rainy Lake Square will begin as soon as possible, with equipment expected on-site sometime next week.
At its meeting Monday night, council awarded the tender to RML Contracting of Thunder Bay for the construction of the square, as well as the replacement of the brick sidewalk along the 200 block of Scott Street and the block entry sidewalks at the Civic Centre, at a total cost of $2,101,997.15.
Operations and Facilities manager Travis Rob, who has been overseeing the project, said the town and the contractor now will have to complete all of the paperwork, as well as set up pre-construction meetings–one with the architect, contractor, and town staff and the other with local stakeholders, such as downtown property owners and tenants.
These should take place next week, with stakeholders to be notified.
“Things are going to start to happen,” Rob noted. “The contractor is gung-ho to get started and rightly so, he’s got a lot of work to do.
“Things are going to pick up as fast as they can.”
Rob said he’s glad the project finally has reached this stage.
“Now the fun part starts; now we get to see something actually happen,” he enthused.
“We saw the demolition but it was just a step,” added Rob. “Now we’re getting to that last part.
“We can see the finish line, it’s in our sights. That’s the exciting part, right?”
The completion date for the Rainy Lake Square is Aug. 18.
The Scott Street sidewalk work is slated to be completed Sept. 8, followed by the Civic Centre sidewalk on Oct. 2.
Council voted 5-2 in favour of awarding the tender, with Couns. Doug Kitowski and Ken Perry voting against it.
“It came in $365,000 over-budget,” Coun. Perry said after the meeting.
“That was it. That’s the only reason I voted against it,” he noted.
“I would have voted for it if we were spending $1.9 million on the project, like we said we were going to in the first place.”
Coun. Kitowski cited the same concern earlier in the meeting.
The majority of the Rainy Lake Square portion of the project cost is being paid for through federal and provincial funds, as well as a contribution from The Shops on Scott (BIA).
The remaining budget shortfall of $366,155.42 will be funded by the allocation of $170,000 of the 2016 budget surplus and $196,155.42 from the corporate projects reserve.
While four bids were received when the project tender closed April 11, all of them were over the allocated budget.
As a result, the scope of jobs was reviewed and some aspects of them were removed to bring the project closer in line with budget allocations, with input from architects Scatliff + Miller + Murray.
One concession made was not installing new trees on the 200 block of Scott Street to replace the ones removed during reconstruction of the sidewalk.
