MEEP funding will support two priority Swift Current projects

The City of Swift Current will be proceeding with a pair of priority projects after receiving grants through the 2020 Municipal Economic Enhancement Program (MEEP).

Swift Current City Council approved a recommendation to use $2,191,000 in MEEP funding to complete the $2.3 million Friesen Street Storm Rehabilitation project. The remaining $195,000 of MEEP dollars will support a $950,000 upgrade to the Fairview Arena’s east surface.

The larger of the two projects, completing the Friesen Street Storm Rehabilitation, will help remove a portion of aging infrastructure which has been at risk of failure for a number of years. The City has identified this project in previous Five Year Capital Plans, but the MEEP funding allows this project to move up the priority list.

Mitch Minken, the City of Swift Current’s General Manager of Infrastructure and Operations, noted that detailed engineering is primarily complete, but they still need to develop a tender package and get it into the market.

“The MEEP funding is available into 2022 so some of that work may happen in 2021. We just have no idea at this point just yet as we make our way through the process,” Minken said following the June 29 Swift Current City Council meeting.

The initial stage of the Friesen Street Storm Rehabilitation project was completed in 2013, with that work completing an upgrade through the parking lot of Riverside Park and up to 6th Ave. S.E. However no additional work has been completed since.

“It’s been a number of years. It was brought forth, and it was in the project plan, but as you can imagine we have many competing priorities so it was deferred previously until this time.”

“It’s like a lot of the larger projects in our plan that are grant dependent. We hope that other levels of government will step up and assist us in completing these. So for us it would remove some pretty big liability from the City as the current storm line goes through private property and through people’s yards in proximity of their houses. So it’ll be great to get it removed from there and into the streets,” Minken said.

He said during subsequent inspections of the site since the initial work in 2013 the storm line has deteriorated further. The City has determined that if a failure were to occur in the storm line, up to eight blocks of homes could potentially be negatively impacted.

“On some of those inspections we’ve determined that it’s failing even more, so it was really time to do it. So that opportunity (MEEP) brought it to the top of the priority list.”

Work on this project will involved rerouting and increasing the size of 650 metres of existing storm main with PVP piping. Additionally they will be installing new catch basins at intersections, and paving and repairing sidewalks in the affected area.

The Fairview Arena improvement work will result in the installation of a concrete floor to replace the sand floor at the east arena which was originally built 43 years ago. The original header system at over four decades old will also be replaced, as it is currently at risk of failure due to corrosion. The project will also replace the boards and glass at the arena.

Jim Jones, General Manager of Community Services, explained the city has been in the process of preparing a request for proposal and anticipated having it released the day following council’s approval.

“It’s going to take between four and six months to complete the project. So we’re hoping for four if we can get out of the gates fast.”

“We’re hoping that we would be in the Fairview Arena for skating and arena operation effective by at the latest December 1, and hopefully before that.”

The City will be required to pay $109,000 for the Friesen Street Storm Rehabilitation

work, and $755,000 for the Fairview Arena upgrade project. The MEEP funding is providing $2,386,467 towards the projects.

And while the MEEP funding will not cover the entire amount of the projects, the City will be utilizing surplus funds from the Light and Power Utility as well as some debt to make up the difference.

No additional tax increase will be required to fund the City’s portion of the project.