Seven companies have put their bids in for the Boulevard Lake Dam rehabilitation.
The numbers are still subject to change, but early figures range from $7.2 million to just over $17 million.
City of Thunder Bay Project Engineer Mike Vogrig says the city is expected to choose who will carry out the work in April. It is scheduled to take two construction seasons, starting this summer.
The city official says most of the work is concrete repairs, but will also include widening the walkway across the dam and installing lighting.
The dam is not held up by its own weight, but instead has some internal reinforcement. New standards require the dam to have another set of reinforcements in case the first one fails.
“To make that the dam is structurally sound in the event of a very large storm [or] something of that nature. With the impacts of climate change and that being on the forefront, we want to ensure that we have a structure that, even under worst-case scenarios, is going to be safe,” Vogrig explains.
He says the work on the aging structure very much needed, since parts of the existing dam are 100 years old.
He notes the city’s process is usually to choose the least expensive tender, but points out that the figures have not been reviewed and the process still needs to be finalized.
For the first year of work, events at Boulevard Lake like Dragon Boat races will be cancelled because the lake will be drained to around half its usual depth.
Bids:
Tom Jones Corporation
Thunder Bay
$13,448,355.18
Bot Construction
Oakville, ON
$13,673,000
Teranorth Construction
Sudbury
$12,931,159.52
Landform Civil
Hamilton, ON
$12,402,588.46
Concrete Walls
Thunder Bay & Vancouver
$7,279,829.42
MTM-2 Contracting
Milton, ON
$17,162,435.30
LH North LTD
Thunder Bay
$17,016,654.58
