City council gave staff the pre-approval to proceed with seeking professional services, such as design and tender, to get started on jumpstarting capital projects for 2017.
Much of the capital projects will be dedicated for roadwork, as the city has up to $14 million to budget, following the approval of a $10 million loan through an Alternative Approval Process that was validated by electors in October.
According to a staff report, details of project lists, priorities and schedules will be developed after the pre approval and forwarded to Council for final approval.
"We have the $10 million loan approved, so we're going ahead with 2nd St. South, but our budget talks are ongoing right now, we're not going to be finalized probably until the end of February," said Mayor Lee Pratt. "We know we're going to do it, so we're just giving them [staff] permission to get going on the engineering and the design and everything."
All the engineering and design for 2nd St. South is pretty much already done, all the engineering and design, but we've got a bunch of other projects we're going to be working on, so we want to be able to get the work started on that so we can go to tender early."
One of the larger projects in the works is the redevelopment of 2nd St. south from Highway 3/95 to 11th Ave complete with roadwork and underlying infrastructure, while 11th Ave to 14th Ave will also be repaved.
That project is expected to cost roughly $6.5 million.