Summer’s biggest news ‘scoop’ will be just outside Reggie’s Place

Two years ago, when city officials spoke about their plans to resurface downtown Queen Street, they talked a lot about the intersection at East Street.

Although most of the Queen Street project won't go as deep as the last major excavations done there in 1980-1981, or the 2016 rebuild of Gore Street, problems were expected at East Street.

"East Street needs a total rebuild, including the sewers," said Don McConnell, then the city's director of planning.

As SooToday reported at the time, a big dig would be needed there, with major disruptions expected for businesses near the Queen/East corner.

"This is going to be a disruption to the businesses. I'm not hiding that," McConnell said.

Last Wednesday, SooToday exclusively reported that the Pim-to-East section of Queen Street had been removed from this year's road budget because of insufficient funding.

That means the much-needed work on the Queen/East intersection won't be started in 2024.

But now, there's word of another big dig needed on Queen Street between March and Elgin streets.

That block is home to the courthouse, the post office and the venerable Reggie’s Place Tavern.

It turns out that when the last major work on Queen was done 40 years ago, a century-old stretch of sewer pipe on that block wasn't replaced, for reasons no one's able to explain.

That means the most complex and potentially disruptive part of this year’s reconstruction work will be in that block, and the city is warning the work will temporarily close both lanes on Queen and one block may extend into next year.

"Back in the 80s when the last projects were done.... all the underground was done, except there was some sewer between Elgin and March," Darrell Maahs, a project manager at AECOM, told Downtown Association members this month.

"In that area it was not replaced. For whatever reason. Not sure what it was," Maahs said.

"That sewer was 100 years old, so it has to be redone. Also in that block between Elgin and March, the PUC has identified a number of issues with the watermain. So both those are being replaced in that block."

The extra work in that block will require a complete closure on that part of Queen Street for six weeks, Maahs said.

"We anticipate that the work is going to go into the late fall. Our completion date is somewhere at the end of October," said Maggie McAuley, the city's municipal services and design engineer. 

"But there is a bit of leeway for potential delays due to weather or delivery delays. We recognize this is a large amount of work for one season to do," McAuley said.

"There is a possibility that one of the blocks – Elgin to Bruce – will be delayed until next year.

"What we've done is we've built into our contract an incentive so that if the contractor meets deadlines and is able to complete it within this year, they will be eligible for that incentive. So it's basically trying to encourage them to get it done on time.

"As we mentioned between March and Elgin, we are doing some significant trench work. That will mean that we will allow the contractor to close the road for that period of time.

"We've limited them to six weeks to attempt for that and then they'll return it to one lane open.

"It may not be actual surface but it will always be open to traffic. Elsewhere within the contract, we're asking the contractor as much as possible to leave one lane open at all times," McAuley said.

Design and purchasing work on the Queen Street resurfacing was significantly delayed by horse-trading needed to secure sufficient city council support.

The City of Sault Ste. Mare issued a call for tenders this past Wednesday, with an application deadline of April 24.

The final contract is expected to go to city council for approval on May 13, with construction starting as soon as possible after that.

The successful bidder will be responsible for occupational health and safety on the job and the city says input from the contractor will be needed before further decisions are made.