LANCASTER – A Cornwall contractor will be rebuilding William Street in Williamstown this year.
South Glengarry council approved a bid from Malyon Excavation for $974,347 at a meeting earlier this month. Malyon was one of five bidders and was almost $179,000 below the second lowest bid.
The township had budgeted $1.2 million for the project, which will rebuild the road that’s less than a kilometer long from County Road 19 to the Peanut Line on the south shore of the Raisin River.
“This is a ray of sunshine in what are pretty gloomy days,” Infrastructure General Manager Ewen MacDonald told council.
MacDonald said the bid was “significantly lower than the engineer’s estimate” but had no problems based on a review by a third party consultant.
The work will include removing old storm sewer, installing new storm sewers, catch basins, storm laterals, curbs, sidewalks and road reconstruction.
MacDonald says the contract will be written with some flexibility to consider rules surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
He hopes it could go ahead this year under the province’s definition of “critical infrastructure” because the storm sewer system is failing and the quality of storm water pouring into the Raisin River is questionable.
“I have no issue giving it to Malyon. I have full confidence they’re going to do a good job,” Coun. Sam McDonell said.
Deputy Mayor Lyle Warden was concerned there was “quite a bit of money on the table” between the two lowest bids and wanted to ensure “the job is done properly.”
Malyon Excavation was looking at this project in a very “strong manner” in regard to its pricing after losing out to another company on a couple of large area projects, MacDonald explained.
Any surplus will likely go toward paying for the new township garage on Airport Road.