With Kinach opposed, council approves itsy-bitsy Queen St. rebuild

Construction work on a 450-metre section of Queen Street could begin as early as Wednesday after city council authorized the abbreviated rebuilding project to begin, with just one councillor voting against.

On Monday, council awarded a $6.2-million contract to Avery Construction Ltd. for resurfacing and streetscape improvements to Queen Street from Elgin to Brock.

Councillors also authorized street closures from May 1 to Nov. 30 to allow the work, which will include replacing underground services from Elgin to March.

Only Ward 4 Coun. Stephan Kinach voted against the project.

"I'm just not going to be supporting it. I haven't supported it from the beginning," Kinach said.

The three-block section of Queen to be improved this year is considerably smaller than what council originally wanted.

When city councillors first approved the project on Aug. 28 of last year, they were hoping everything from Pim Street to Bruce (1,200 metres) could be improved for no more than $6 million.

If the lowest bid exceeded that amount, council directed that the geographic size of the project be shrunk to fit the budget.

As SooToday exclusively reported last month, the 700 and 800 blocks of Queen Street East, from Pim to East Street, were quietly removed from the project when bid documents were released to contractors.

That reduced the job to 870 metres of Queen between East and Bruce.

The job was finally shrunk to 450 metres from Elgin to Brock to meet a $6-million limit imposed by city council.

The city has applied to Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. (NOHFC) for a $2-million grant to support the streetscaping portion of the Queen Street improvement project.

So far, there's no word that application has been successful, but if that money comes through, limits of the project will be extended to include from Elgin Street to East Street.

"Every now and then you have to resurface a street," said Mayor Matthew Shoemaker.

"It is Queen Street's turn. We're going to do this over six years or potentially eight years, depending on how much we can get done throughout the phases," the mayor said.

"By eight years from now, if we left it, we would be in much worse shape than it is today. It's already in relatively poor shape.

"There are folks who have asked... why couldn't you just take the $6 million that you're spending on Queen Street, but put it into other priorities that we've got?

"The reality is the capital budget for roads is set every year. The cost of asphalt and doing streets goes up every year, but the budgeted amount for our roads has not gone up for many years.

"If we didn't put money into resurfacing Queen Street this year, it would be going to other streets.

"It wouldn't be going to buying buildings or arts and culture priorities or recreational priorities. 

"It would be going to other streets. So it's Queen Street's turn," Shoemaker said.