Unforeseen issues are threatening to delay the start of the Main Street South reconstruction project.
The city needs to purchase land to construct its drainage structures prior to the project kicking off, mayor David Bosiak said.
“There are still details that we still have to work on as a community to finalize a landowner agreement, which gets us ready for the actual construction, which has to be tendered really, really soon,” Bosiak said, adding he discussed the matter with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation (MIT) Minister Doyle Piwniuk and Municipal Relations Minister Andrew Smith at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention, last week.
“So we’re behind the eight ball on a couple of issues related to that, but it sounded like the province was willing to discuss possibly helping.”
The original plan called for a project extending over two construction seasons with the bulk of the construction work taking place in year one and the finishing touches being added early in the second year.
“The initial plan was to have this tendered probably by now or by April, so that construction would begin in June, go through the summer and have most of the work done before freeze up in the fall,” Bosiak said. “And then have the contractors return next May or June to finish paving so that all would be complete by the summer games.”
While that remains the plan at this point, Bosiak said unless there is some movement soon, there is a chance the schedule will shift.
“We’re just risking that the final paving and painting and everything that needs to be done to finish it will probably be occurring later into spring and summer of next year. Maybe it doesn’t make us look as beautiful for the summer games, but the project is not in jeopardy. It’s just a timing thing,” he said.
Having worked for the provincial government, Bosiak understands that projects involving the province can move slowly as they work through the checks and balances to ensure no one is unfairly benefitting personally or professionally because of the contract.
“All of those checks and balances do have a tendency to slow things down. Because this is a project that involves MIT, there’s provincial jurisdiction, as well, and that is the complicated part,” he said, adding he hopes things will progress steadily now that he has been able to make the ministers aware of the situation.
“They’re saying, ‘you get your stuff done, we’ll get our stuff done and everything will be good.’”
