Staff
The reconstruction project taking place on King’s Highway is continuing at a steady place.
Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown told Fort Frances town council last night that work is a little bit behind schedule
“But this is the biggest block,” he said, referring to the work being done east of Webster Avenue.
“We lost roughly six days due to adjustments to the project—extras or change orders—and one day to weather,” he noted, but indicated things are moving along.
Brown noted the storm sewer has been completed up to Lillie Avenue, with the water main having been chlorinated and pressure-tested from east of York Avenue to Lillie Avenue.
“In the next 20 days, they are going to be completing the sanitary sewer between Webster and Lillie,” he explained, adding concrete work will also be taking place where the new sewer and water services were installed.
Due to the next step of the project between Lillie and Webster, the intersection at Webster and King’s Highway will be closed.
Any traffic traveling south on Webster will be diverted down Second Street and onto Wright Avenue.
“We’re going to be blocking it off and that’s going to be organized with the businesses,” Brown voiced, adding by Aug. 5, he expects the first course of paving will be laid.
“I know that it is some inconvenience to our citizens in town,” noted town CAO Mark McCaig about the detour onto Fourth Street.
“I think for the first little while we had to adapt,” he continued, citing Brown was receptive and listened to concerns, especially of the businesses in the area.
McCaig said he makes a point of looking at the situation there as regularly as he can.
“I’m pretty satisfied about where we are at,” he expressed. “It’s not perfect, but I’ve seen a lot worse.”
Other work beginning this summer also incudes work at the underpass starting today and running to Aug. 3.
Brown explained they’re going to be doing concrete work on the east wall at the Portage Ave underpass.
“There’s going to be two flagmen at Third Street and Fifth Street and the underpass will be down to one lane of traffic,” he said.
Meanwhile, sewer and water replacements on Nelson Street from Butler Avenue to the Shevlin wood yard will also be starting soon.
“There is an open house meeting with all of the owners along Nelson Street between Butler and the woodyard on July 23,” Brown noted, citing he’s going to be distributing letters to homeowners on Thursday.
“There is a tremendous amount of work being done,” stressed McCaig. “In fact, I’ve never seen this many activities.”
He indicated it’s largely due to the flooding and emergency declaration in town last year.
“Some of the capital projects were forgone and so they came onto the docket for this year,” he said, thanking Brown and his staff for their hard work.
