City of Powell River Council has awarded the contract for the Maple and Sycamore safer streets project to Leighton Contracting, in the amount of $576,410, plus GST.
At the July 11 council meeting, councillor George Doubt said he saw in the staff report regarding the project that there was a time limit to complete the project by September 30, which is about nine or 10 weeks.
Director of planning services Jason Gow said that is included in the construction contract.
“They understand that is our deadline,” said Gow. “We also know the province would likely give us a bit of grace if we were 95 per cent done. They want to see projects get done, but our goal is September 30.”
Doubt said if the motion passes, a lot of the people on Maple Street are going to be happy.
The motion to award the contract passed unanimously.
During question period, when asked by the Peak about the timeline for construction, Gow said the contract would be awarded July 12 and it would allow the city to move quickly.
“We will engage the property owners in the vicinity and make sure we have our notifications on our website and participatepr.ca, and ideally, we’ll have the contractor moving as quickly as a couple of weeks from now,” said Gow.
According to the staff report regarding the project, on October 6, 2022, council directed staff to apply for $357,000 in funding from the BC Active Transportation Infrastructure Grant program for the project. The money was awarded by the province on February 14, 2023.
On May 2, 2023, council directed staff to proceed to detailed design that reflected community input and on July 13, 2023, council received detailed design and directed staff to proceed with tendering and construction of the project.
In late 2023, staff procured a consulting engineer to provide construction design, with ISL Engineering being awarded the contract. Tender drawings were issued in April and May 2024.
The staff report stated that the design emphasizes pedestrian accessibility, with new curb letdowns, painted crosswalks and shorter crossing distances across main intersections on Townsite streets.
The report indicated that the budget for the project is funded from the $357,000 provincial grant and an additional $285,113 from Powell River Community Forest. There are no additional financial implications to consider at this time, the report stated.
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