Contractors working on the Uptowne Olds upgrade project hope to pour more concrete for sidewalks this week, depending on weather, according to interim director of operational services Scott Chant.
Rubydale Asphalt Works is the general contractor. Olds Concrete is doing the concerete work.
Weather is a question.
According to a recent Environment Canada forecast, we're expected to receive a mixture of precipitation (snow and rain) today (Tuesday, Sept. 9) and possibly snow tomorrow. However, it's supposed to dry out and be sunny by the end of the week.
“Is that going to slow us down? Yeah, it's going to slow us down a bit again, right? But if we can get another good week of drying weather, you'd see a huge, drastic change as to what that looks like down there,” Chant says.
A lot of work lately has centred around strengthening and firming up the area underneath where the concrete is supposed to go. Once that's done, workers plan to pour the remaining concrete for the sidewalks. When that's completed, the next step is paving.
“Then one of the final things would be for Fortis to come in, run the wires inside the conduit and stand the lights up and – presto – start shovelling the snow,” Chant says.
Earlier, the Albertan reported there were concerns about the time it was taking to produce the old-fashioned-style “heritage” lights. They will look like lights that used to exist in the early decades of the last century. Chant says production of those lights is still a concern.
“I'm just waiting for an answer back from Fortis,” Chant says. “They're looking into where the new lights are at in production. They've told us that the new lights should be here by the end of September.
“But (the question) is, ‘are we still on target or by some stretch of miracle, are they going to be here ahead of schedule?' When (they) get back to me, a decision will be made then.
“If they can't meet the Sept. 29 deadline, they're having discussions with themselves to put up temporary lights. Then when the new ones come in, they just change them out – take the temporary ones down and put the new ones in.”
Chant says this year's portion of the Uptowne Olds revitalization project will likely end around the end of September.
“It's the end of the project for this year because basically we'll run out of weather,” he says.
Chant says left over for next year will be finishing touches, like the installation of garbage cans, recycling bins, benches and bike racks as well as the planting of trees.
Chant says so far, no decisions have been made as to what exactly all those finishing touches will look like – including the type of tree.
“That we'll continue to work on behind the scenes. But they can be added at any time, right? Because they just bolt down fixtures,” he says.
Chant says as far as he can tell at the moment, the project is basically on time (44 days minus weekends and rain-outs). It began July 21 after rain delays.
He says the project is also on budget, which was bumped up to $1.5 million from $1.4 million; primarily because the town has decided to put new lights on both sides of the avenue, instead of just one side, as originally planned.
Chant says the project is still within the 10 per cent plus or minus contingency built into the construction contract.
“Are they on target? I think realistically we're not doing too bad in that aspect. Does it seem like it's stretching out longer and longer? The answer to me is, ‘yes, it's getting longer and longer.' I want to be out of there. But as far as the contract basis-wise, we're still sitting in good shape,” Chant says.
“So far, we've had some surprises,” he adds. “Just like anything else, when you open up an old street you have a few surprises, but we've been able to deal with those. So to say we're on budget, I would say that we're about as close to being on budget as we can.”
“Sometimes when they run into an issue, we issue a change order to deal with that issue and that fund comes out of the contingency. At the end of the project when we line everything up and pay for everything, there may be savings in other areas that sort of bring us back to having extra money again. So I would say for paperwise, we're still on budget. We're still on budget for what we see happening.”
