BATTLEFORD - The Town of Battleford council will be saving some money in awarding a contract for a new improvement project coming up.
During council's meeting Tuesday, Public Works Manager Eric Bilanski gave an update on the 25th Street storm sewer replacement project. The work will extend from Third Avenue to Highway 4.
Bilanski noted the project was approved in the town's 2024 capital budget for $451,000.
The tenders were received Aug. 14, with the lowest tender from Sanburn Construction Ltd. with a price of $388,900 plus PST, for a total of $412,234.
Bilanski noted Sanburn proposed an April 2025 start date. Then, 60 days to complete the project.
The second lowest bidder was Unicon Construction Inc. with a mid-September 2024 start date, and 45 days to finish the project, with a tender price of $459,175 plus PST, for a total of $486,725.
"This is a $74,000 difference with the PST," Bilanski said, when comparing Sanburn's and Unicon's bids.
Administration's recommendation was for the project to be put on hold and done next spring by Sanburn Construction.
For the financial implications, Bilanski noted there is still a contingency cost for engineering fees on top to consider, which would likely be around a 15 per cent addition to the cost.
He anticipated the total cost including the engineering fees might be "a little bit over, but not much," above the town's total budgeted amount for the project.
But the town still needs to wait to see the contingency costs next year to know for sure.
At the current time, the project remains significantly under budget.
Coun. Alexis Christensen was pleased with the proposal.
"The job can wait just a little bit longer, and it's our job to save that $75,000," she said of the savings when going with Sanburn's bid.
Coun. Doug Laing said, to sum up, council is agreeing to awarding the contract now, and "just pushing back the start date."
Council voted in favour to accept administration's recommendation for the project.
Mayor Ames Leslie said the whole aim of the project is to increase capacity.
"As [with] more houses and more usage, we were finding that some of our storm sewer and our sewer capacity is just not big enough to [handle] the volume of water that is created now, whether through storm sewer or through effluence," he said. "It just needs to be expanded, updated and upgraded. That's the whole point to do it."
