Road work in Gravenhurst comes in 20% over budget

They only recieved one bid

Gravenhurst Council approved a bid over $3.68 million for road work, in the May 13, 2025, meeting.

Director of Infrastructure Services, Andrew Stacey, said they had interest from 14 bidders for three road rehabilitation projects involving Peninsula Road, Riley Lake, and Baseline Road, however, received only 1 bid once the tender call closed.

According to the staff report, the bid by Fowler Construction was 20% over the budget estimated for the project.

Stacey confirmed, “The bid was overbudget. It exceeded what we had available for the three projects that were identified in our Capital Plan, so, decisions had to be made about what project to defer to another year to get some momentum and do some of the projects that Council approved.”

He indicated that the type of work required on Baseline and Peninsula “is out of the realm of what my team could do.” He added, “So that was the decision-making point, that we defer Riley Lake to continue with those two lighter projects.”

He continued that for the first time the Town has a Low Roads Capital budget which they can use to help with costs. He said, “It’s the intention to use the $300,000 that’s available to use in the Capital Budget towards improving probably 40-50% of Riley Lake this year, with the balance of it falling into the budget for next year’s consideration.”

Councillor, Randy Jorgensen, indicated that the Town has had success with receiving many other tender bids recently and inquired about why it wasn’t the case this time. He said, “I thought we were kind of turning the corner regarding getting not a lot of bids on items.”

Stacey advised that it’s been “the oddest year” with project tenders. He agreed that they’ve been getting a lot of interest for various projects, however, it depends on the work. For instance, they would have likely received more bids if the project was related to storm sewer or water mains.

He added, “There’s not a lot of contractors out there that do this type of work. Fowler does have a bit of a monopoly up here and not that that’s a bad thing.” He said they considered going to market for more vendors “but at the end of the day I don’t think that would have resulted in much,” other than delaying the project.

He continued that he’s “comfortable with the company and the type of work we’re asking for.”