A public information meeting and special council meeting will be held on Nov. 22 at the Elora Community Centre to outline the design and funding options for the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge.
The goal of this meeting is to show options to the public for review prior to a special council session following the public information meeting.
The public open house is from 5pm to 6:45pm with a presentation by BT Engineering at 5:30pm.
The council meeting begins at 7pm with registered community delegations speaking to council.
Residents can register as a delegation by emailing kokane@centrewellington.ca, or call 519-846-9691 ext. 243. The presentation of the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge design and funding options will be posted online for community review and input and survey responses on Nov. 15 at www.centrewellington.ca/victoriastreet and www.connectcw.ca.
Comments and completed surveys will be accepted until 12pm on Nov. 22.
Please visit www.centrewellington.ca/victoriastreet or www.connectcw.ca for more information and updates.
Background
In 2012, the Pearle Hospitality Elora Mill development concept recognized the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge as a key public connection between the Pearle South Side development and the existing downtown Elora businesses.
In 2015, Wellington County began a process to review the reconstruct/replacement of the Metcalfe St (Badley) Bridge due to structural issues which required the closing of the sidewalks in late 2014.
The need to replace the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge in the short term arose during conversations with the county as it was undertaking a review of the Badley (Metcalfe Street) Bridge rehabilitation or replacement through their Class Environmental Assessment (EA) process.
As part of these discussions it was agreed that the re-instatement of the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge would provide significant improvements for public access to the downtown and for downtown Elora businesses and residents especially during the Badley Bridge rehabilitation or replacement.
For this reason the township identified funding for the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge as part of the 2016 budget which was latter approved by council to be funded from the Jack R. MacDonald Trust funds.
In December 2016, council endorsed the EA preferred concept alternative for the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge and directed staff to proceed with the detailed design, applications for regulatory approvals, preparation of tender documents and construction for the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge in 2017.
As an important first step in the design development for the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge, BT Engineering conducted a Value Engineering (VE) study of the project to reconcile the scope of the preferred bridge concept with the available budget.
At the time of the VE study, the estimated construction cost of the EA concept design for the Victoria Street Pedestrian Bridge was $1,641,895 not including $100,000 for the north piazza or $200,000 for contingency, which brings the total estimated construction cost for the EA concept design to approximately $1.94 million.
This cost estimate is approximately $840,000 over the allocated $1.1 million budget.The budget was set based on a very preliminary initial cost estimate for a simple bridge replacement.
As the design development has progressed, the cost estimates have been refined, and further bridge design options have been generated to better achieve the objectives of the project in a cost effective manner.
