GORDON—After several delays due to the pandemic and with costs on all parts of the project soaring over its original budget, the rehabilitation, renovation and upgrade work on the Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport is set to proceed. A spokesperson for the Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport partners announced last Friday that construction will now begin.
“Once construction is complete this airport will be a showpiece for Northern Ontario,” stated Lee Hayden, reeve of Gordon/Barrie Island and chair of the Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport Partners group (which also includes Ken Noland, reeve of Burpee and Mills, Ron Lane, mayor of the Town of Gore Bay and Gore Bay councillor Dan Osborne, a former member of the committee up until the last municipal election). “We are very proud that this project will be completed and will welcome people to Western Manitoulin.”
Reeve Hayden explained that the airport partners committee unanimously awarded the construction tender and have signed a letter of intent to hire Lignum Builders Ltd. of Espanola. The tender amount awarded is $4,107,000. In the previous tender for the project, the lowest tender bid had been $793,000 over budget. However, Lignum had reduced costs with the committee, with modifications made to the esthetics of the building to bring the costs down by $363,000.
“With the shortfall we were still facing, we took $100,000 out of the airport reserves,” said Reeve Hayden. “We also received a donation from a private donation, and the municipalities also agreed to top up the funding we had already provided for the project.”
“We had to make some modifications to the building to bring costs down. Basically, we took some of the pretty out of the original designs,” said Reeve Hayden. He noted the first construction tender that the airport partners group had put out included upgrades to the secondary runway at the airport but were cancelled as the tenders were double the budget that had been set aside for the construction project.
However, “We didn’t reduce the footprint of the new terminal building that will be constructed,” he said, noting the new terminal building will be 3,700 square feet in size. The project will include the construct of helipad, total electrical updates (of the field electrical centre), the installation of airfield lighting and emergency power
system enhancements.
“The current airport terminal building will be demolished, with an entirely new building being constructed,” said Reeve Hayden. “And part of this will include an emergency shelter, a service area with kitchenette, fully handicapped accessible washrooms, a pilot’s lounge and Canada Customs office. There will also be a good size lobby area for groups to come in and use. As well there will be two offices available to rent.”
“It’s going to be a standard building, updated for energy efficiency, with in-floor heating,” Reeve Hayden continued. “The contractors will be notified today that they have been awarded the tender for construction. We want the work to get underway as soon as possible.”
Reeve Hayden said a major part of the project construction will be completed this year, with possibly some work to be carried out in the new year, such as landscaping.
Reeve Hayden acknowledged getting to the construction of this project has been a ‘long-term’ process. “Our application for funding for construction went out in 2018 and we received funding approval in 2019. It has been a long, drawn-out process due to COVID-related delays. The project will cost more than we had originally estimated but it will still be good value. We had to absorb inflation costs.”
Under the original project plan the secondary runway was a want, not a need, it was previously reported. The main focus of the project was the new terminal building itself, the helipad and the generator infrastructure. The helipad will be used to provide services in emergency situations.
