Mainroad Howe Sound Contracting found out last week its days in the Sea to Sky corridor are numbered.
The provincial government announced on Friday (March 4) it selected S2S Transportation Group (S2S) as the preferred proponent to do the improvements for the Sea-to-Sky Highway.
Ten companies with different specialties partnered to create S2S and submit a bid for the $600-million 25-year contract offered by the Ministry of Transportation.
Locally, the best known of the ten are Peter Kiewit Sons Co. and Capilano Highway Services Company.
Kiewit is currently doing the major work between Sunset Beach and Lions Bay and the company did the recently completed work through the Cheakamus Canyon.
Regular maintenance of the highways in the Sea to Sky Corridor was done by Cap. Highways from 1988 until Oct. 26, 2003 when the province decided to switch from Capilano Highways to Mainroad. The province signed a 10-year contract with Mainroad.
The other companies involved in the S2S bid are Macquarie North America Ltd., JJM Group, Hatch Mott MacDonald, ND LEA Consultants Ltd., UMA Engineering Ltd., McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd., The Miller Group and Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP.
"What we've done is selected a preferred proponent," said Peter Milburn, the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project's Executive Project Director. "The next step in the selection process is to negotiate the contract."
This means there is no transition date from Mainroad to Capilano Highways just yet.
"It would be premature to speculate on how they would like to execute that," said Milburn.
The project director said S2S offered the best value in safety, reliability and capacity improvements for the Sea to Sky Highway.
S2S will design, build, finance, and operate the highway on behalf of the provincial government.
The contract the province expects to sign with S2S will be a performance-based agreement, said Milburn. "The contract is such that the main features we were looking to achieve are some of the key features on how the contract will be evaluated and how they are paid," Milburn said. "That is different from a contract where you are building to technical specifications."
The project is designed to result in a safer highway that can handle a greater capacity and deliver more reliability. The improvements are expected to be completed by 2009 and the improved highway.
A news release announcing the deal with S2S reported: "The ministry will oversee the project ensuring that all specifications such as highway width, number of lanes, safety requirements, sight line requirements, signage, traffic management and commitments to communities are appropriately met."
The two other bidders on the contract were The Sound Highway Development Consortium and the Black Tusk Highway Group.Mainroad partnered with Canadian Highways Infrastructure Corporation, Borealis Infrastructure Management Inc., the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, Egis Projects, Vinci Concessions S.A., Aecon Constructors, Vinci Construction Grands Projects S.A., Delcan Corporation, Klohn Crippen, Consultants Ltd., TD Securities and Goodmans LLP to form the Sound Highway Development Consortium.
The Black Tusk Highway Group was made up of Bilfinger Berger BOT Inc., Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited, AMEC, Granite Construction Company, Parsons Transportation Group, Graham Industrial Services Ltd., Emil Anderson Construction Co. Ltd., Emil Anderson Maintenance Co. Ltd., PricewaterhouseCoopers and McCarthy Tetrault LLP.
