Lloydminster city council is looking for a contractor for planned road upgrades for 75 Ave. from 12 St. to 19 St.
At the July 21 council meeting, administration presented a request for decision to find a contractor for the planned upgrades. Due to timing issues between the council meeting schedule and when the contract comes in, council had to set parameters to find a tender.
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“What council might notice is this is a little different, we don’t actually have a contractor to be named today due to the contract coming in next week,” said Mayor Gerald Aalbers. “Next scheduled council meeting I believe is Aug. 18, which would lead to construction not starting until basically Sept. 1.”
The council motion would allow for the procurement of the contractor if the conditions were met. The two conditions listed are: the total award value, inclusive of the contingency allowance, is within the approved capital budget amount; and, the contractor recommended for award has the lowest financial summary.
Don Stang, executive manager of operations, gave some insight into how the tender process will work.
“We won’t be approving this contract unless it’s low price and falls within our budget,” he said. “The way the tender works is, we know X cubic metres or tonne of asphalt, they would give us a price of a dollar per tonne. That dollar per tonne gets multiplied out by how many tonnes they place down on the road. They’re bidding it based on a unit rate per item, not necessarily the whole scope of work.”
Stang says the city has a good idea of what the cost of the project would look like.
“We have pretty good estimations of what those quantities are and that’s what we use for the tender process,” he said. “When it’s tendered, we’re usually pretty close on actual cost.”
Aalbers says the city is looking to be proactive in this construction.
“The flow of traffic and the development work that’s being done along 75th prompted us to move forward and try to be proactive rather than reactive,” he said. “It’ll be a turning lane, which would be the standing lane, and then you move to the right around the flow of traffic.”
The project is expected to start in August.
“This project is anticipated to start in August of 2025 and is expected to be completed by November 2025,” said James Rogers, senior manager, capital infrastructure.
“We are looking to push the roadway widening and rehabilitation work as soon as this approval potentially goes through.”
The hope is to have it completed before the frost sets in.
Administration says the item could come back for information to a future council meeting to update council on who was awarded the contract. It will also return to council in a procurement update.
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