It's been a long road but there's finally light at the end of the tunnel with work on the Bruhn Bridge replacement anticipated to start this fall.
At the June 12 Committee of the Whole meeting, Sicamous chief administrative officer Kelly Bennett gave an update on the latest milestones from the Ministry of Transportation (MoTI).
"They've tendered out the Bruhn Bridge project to the seven pre-qualified applicants, it closes July 18 and they're hoping to award it then shortly thereafter," she told council. "So they're hopefully looking to start work in September."
She added that a group from MoTI is scheduled to attend the July 10 committee meeting to give council an update in person, and discuss the traffic management strategy they've developed.
"That is exciting that we're actually getting started," Coun. Pam Beech said. "I didn't really know if we were going to see it quite so quickly."
"Thank God, 10 years later," Mayor Colleen Andersonl added.
Bennett also explained that staff is currently working on an agreement between MoTI and the district to accommodate parking at the Beach Park that will be inaccessible during construction. Once finalized with MoTI's legal team, that will go to a Request for Proposals (RFP) to lease some land.
“The gist of the agreement is that they will give us up $500,000 for the fair market value of the replacement for parking for a five-year term starting April of 2025. So our RFP will say, hey we’re looking for parking from April 2025 for five years, do you have land that we can lease?”
She added they have the option to do a lease, or apply that money to the purchase of some land if available, which Coun. Malcolm Makayev favoured, pointing out that the cost to buy or lease land is going to increase every year.
“One more item to note is that they anticipate it to be completed... by the end of 2027. However, they’re giving us five years for leasing, recognizing there could be some movement on the completion date," Bennett added. "But they’re really pushing to get everything through and locked and loaded."
