At its last regular meeting, North Bay City Council approved a $389,900 contract to Tatham Engineering for its services on the Seymour Street Reconstruction project.
Included in the proposal for the project is the installation of a signalized intersection at the Seymour Street/Venture Crescent/Commerce Crescent, the construction of a concrete sidewalk from Station Road to Commerce Crescent, road-widening, retaining walls, storm sewers, ditching, and a 600-millimetre diameter trunk watermain on Seymour Street from Wallace Road to Station Road plus a watermain extension to Highway 11/17 along Cholette Street to the east side of the right-of-way limit.
The City of North Bay received funding approval of up to $1.2 million through the Northern Ontario Resource Development Support Fund, from the Ministry of Northern Development, for engineering and construction services for the widening and reconstruction of Seymour Street.
To proceed, the City of North Bay requires professional engineering services to complete the preliminary and detailed design of Seymour Street from Station Road to Wallace Road.
The recommendation from staff cautioned against not awarding the contract. "If the contract is not awarded the necessary project engineering
would need to be completed by in-house city staff which is ineligible for funding under the program, additional City financing would be required to cover the non-eligible engineering performed on the project."
In 2013, the environmental work performed was deemed sufficient to proceed to construction at that time. Since more than 10 years have elapsed, Tatham's role will be to produce an addendum to the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment, Schedule C, which will involve a review of the planning and design
process and the current environmental setting to ensure "the project and the mitigation measures are still valid," according to the associated staff report.
Once the Class EA addendum has been concluded and tabled, the detailed design will be finalized.
Six proposals were evaluated by the City of North Bay and the evaluation considered experience and qualifications, statement of understanding and methodology, work plan, project schedule, risk management, and price.
The proposal from Collingwood, Ont.,-based Tatham Engineering Limited scored highest and is deemed to provide the best overall value to the City. The bid was considered fair and reasonable.
