A sewer trunk line project is already attracting potential contractors from across North America.
The city is going through a pre-qualification of possible contractors for the project – which involves micro-tunnelling – ahead of the detailed design work being completed and the project being put out to tender.
The project is being advertised in national and international publications.
Jason Lueke, a project manager with Associated Engineering, told the crowd at an information event on Project 9 on Thursday that the estimated $40-million project was of a significant enough size to attract interested contractors.
He said there’s probably about five contractors who could do the project in Alberta, but the project has already garnered interest from further flung locations. Just that morning he’d received an email from Pennsylvania about it.
City engineer Kate Polkovsky gave a high level overview of the project and fielded questions from the audience on topics from interest payments to noise and vibration impacts.
The detailed design work for sewer line, which is needed to support developments in western and southern parts of St. Albert, is about 60 per cent complete, Polkovsky said.
The best case scenario for the project is that work begins this fall. If it goes ahead, a borrowing bylaw needed to pay for the work still has to be passed by council. Much of the route will be along Sturgeon Road.
Shafts will be constructed to monitor the tunnelling, and those shafts will be backfilled and rehabilitated when no longer needed. Information like the locations of the shafts can’t be determined until the design work is complete.
Polkovsky was asked whether or not the pipe would be drained by gravity or pumped.
“The majority of this pipe is going to be gravity,” Polkovsky said.
Polkovsky said if the project doesn’t go ahead, many proposed developments, including the Grandin Mall redevelopment, would remain as they are today. That’s because the current system lacks the additional capacity.
Interest on the loan would likely be about $10 million over a 20-year term, said director of finance and utilities Diane McMordie. The financing plan council has approved is to use $10 million from the offsite levies recoveries fund and borrow about $30 million, with the payments being made from the same fund as money is received from developers. The borrowing bylaw is expected in front of council later this year.
With regards to noise, Lueke said noise attenuation measures will be taken. The soils of St. Albert mean there wouldn’t be too much vibration, he said.
Polkovsky said that many soil samples have been taken along the route.
Mayor Nolan Crouse was at the meeting, and noted the financing for the project would ultimately be paid for by developers.
“The good news on this one is that it’s structured so the developers pay the interest and the principle,” Crouse said.
He also noted that it’s “really gutsy” for developers like Amacon and Great West Life Realty Advisors to have already started work on their projects prior to council passing the borrowing bylaw.
