GORE BAY – A tender has been accepted by the municipal members of the Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport committee from one of the four companies that bid to carry out the designs for the rehabilitation and renovation work to be done on the airport, and to be manager of the project.
“We met and went through a scoring criterion for each tender and then reviewed the bids and came up with a successful candidate,” stated Gore Bay Mayor Dan Osborne last Friday. He said that “the bid from Exp. engineering consultants has been accepted by members of the committee at a tender price of $573,430.50.” Other members of the group who considered the tenders included Ken Noland (reeve of Burpee and Mills), Lee Hayden (reeve of Gordon/Barrie Island) and airport manager Robbie Colwell.
Mayor Osborne explained that the first step in the process was to do a scoring list of criteria and rate them from the four companies that bid on the tender, which included Exp. Belanger, Idea Inc. and Tatham.
The qualification categories for the scoring list criteria included corporate capabilities and experience, project team experience, understanding project objectives, work plan methodology and development, and project schedule.
“Exp. in the criteria scoring was the lead pick,” said Mayor Osborne (who pointed out as well Exp. also had the lowest contract bid). “All four companies were good candidates. They all presented very good tenders.”
Exp., based out of Sudbury, will be putting the design together of the work to be done, with the airport group’s requests and asks, and then they will be putting this out for tenders to bid on for the various aspects of the project. Exp. will also manage the project from start to finish and make sure everything is done to specifications and put out the tenders for each aspect of the project.
In July 2020, the federal government announced it was providing funding of $3,966,497 toward the rehabilitation of the Gore Bay-Manitoulin Airport, including a new air terminal, helipad, expansion of the secondary runway and enhancements to security and wildlife fencing. This project will improve passenger safety and security, emergency responses and the flow of traffic.
“Exp. will start the work with the contract being awarded,” said Mayor Osborne. He explained, “we had extended the tender period by a week, so we will be having a meeting (this week) with them to kick off the start of the project. Exp. will be doing the designing work and engineering work, and will take this to tender to find a contractor for the construction. Construction is expected to be done by the end of 2022.”
