Construction around the Cobb’s Block will begin after the Labour Day Weekend and continue until the middle to the end of October.
The construction, which is to replace and realign some old sewer and water mains in the area, will be completed in three section over the roughly one month of construction.
Joe Ireland with Tagish Engineering says the project is fairly simple and shouldn’t take very long to complete, if everything goes to plan.
“It shouldn’t be too complicated, and, should we not run into any problems, it will be done pretty quickly,” Ireland said.
Ireland says the purpose of doing the construction in stages is to keep possible disruptions to a minimum.
The Town and Tagish Engineering hope to keep traffic flowing the businesses in the are and to the residents nearby.
Ireland said one section in particular, which is at the bottom portion of the block, will be the quickest and easiest part of the project.
This section of the construction is projected to last only 13 days. There will be a couple of days where 50 Street will be closed to access the the mains under the street.
Currently 50 Street will be closed for this stage of construction Sept. 13-14.
The second phase of construction will be the shortest lasting only nine days.
Stage two on the project will last 23 days from Sept. 18-27 with 48 and 49 Streets closed on Sept. 18 and 19.
Ireland expects the third stage to be both the longest and most difficult part of construction.
This final section of construction will have both water and sanitary mains to replaces, according to Ireland.
The first section of the construction will only replace water mains.
Ireland says the reason behind the construction and replacement is due to the age of the current mains.
“The current mains are quite old and have seen an increase in breaks in the past while. It is more cost effective to replace them now then to continue to fix them,” he explained.
Coun. Megan Hanson says the Town has done their homework on this project, ensuring the businesses and homeowners in the area.
The plan for the construction was to limit as much disruption and disturbances as possible.
“The biggest concern is having prolonged water disruption. I think we’ve worked it to limit any disruption,” Hanson said.
The biggest disruption to the area will be to parking, which will be temporarily moved to the public parking lot on the corner of 50 Street and 50 Avenue.
Councillors and employees of Tagish Engineering were present at an information session on Aug. 30 to discuss the process. There were a few interested residents and business owners who came in, but most already knew what they needed, according to Hanson.
“A while ago we went door to door to every business owner in the area to talk about this and let them know the plan,” Hanson said. “If this was the first they were hearing about the project then we wouldn’t have been doing our job.”