City’s Lakeshore Drive project going out to tender

The City of Cold Lake continues to eye work on Lakeshore Drive this summer.

After trying to tender the project last summer and bids coming in at nearly $25 million, ten million over their anticipated budget, Mayor Craig Copeland says they are going to try again this year.

“The staff will have the tenders out in the coming weeks. And it’s an exciting project, and they’ve reformatted the tender a little bit differently and see what the price has come in,” said Copeland. 

“The issue is that Lakeshore Drive from the Marina going up to shore, I call it hospital point where the condos are at Freedom Ridge. If you look at the road, you can see a lot of cracking going on.” 

In the 2023 Capital Budget, $6 million was allocated for the project. In 2019, the City completed the functional design of the Lakeshore improvements projects.

This project was initially in the order of magnitude of $15 million over three construction seasons. Due to inflation, this order of magnitude has increased to over $25 million.

Long term, this would include stabilizing the slope with a retaining wall, replacing the underground utilities, and adding architectural features like walking paths and green space.

“We need to come in there from a safety standpoint and fix that bank up. And so at the same time, we want it to look nice, and we also want to have a nice landscaped walking path along that entire way. Then we’re going to come in and fix all of the undergrounds on that street. So that’s old clay pipe on that street. We’ll replace the sewer and water to all the residents,” said Copeland. 

“What we’ve done is over the many years now we put money aside so we’ll see what the tenders come in. We may have to take on more debt financing.”

The improvements also include the development of a linear parking way along Lakeshore Drive.