$3.5M contract awarded for 26th Street

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This article was published 24/06/2025 (307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon City Council has approved a bid of more than $3.5 million for the reconstruction of 26th Street between Park and Victoria avenues set to begin next month.

Council awarded the contract to Zenith Paving Ltd. for $3,530,609.81 — the lowest of two bids — at Monday evening’s council meeting. The city is spending a total of $3,880,000 on the project.

The project will see the street redone largely in its current design.

“Twenty-Sixth has been a long time coming,” said general manager of development services Mark Allard. “We do anticipate the majority of the road to be completed to a state where it can be opened come winter.”

The construction will be done in two parts, Allard said, with work being completed in front of J.R. Reid School for the start of the school year.

“We do anticipate that we’ll start to see lane closures here early in July, and we’ll make sure we get the message out to the public.”

The rest of the work will be completed by the fall, except for a final lift of asphalt in the spring — “which is both a benefit to the contractor as well to ourselves, putting that top layer of asphalt down in reasonable ambient temperatures,” Allard said.

Additional work for the project includes redoing the sidewalks and underground pipes that are prone to freezing. It will also include replacing “non-functional water valves” and certain trees along the road, according to a city document.

The sidewalks will be wider than the current ones — at 1.8 metres wide, instead of the normal 1.5 metres — although Allard said they aren’t the size of a multi-use pathway.

The city presented multiple active transportation changes for the road to residents in August 2024. Slightly less than half of residents wanted no changes made, the Sun previously reported.

The city scrapped the idea this spring, although officials say it is keeping the option on the table for the future. The public discussions and delay they caused to the timeline of the project added to the overall cost.

Coun. Shaun Cameron (Ward 4) said even though the city isn’t going ahead with the proposed changes, it’s good that discussions happened.

“We did take longer to consult on this, and there is a cost that comes to that. But I think at the same time there was residential benefit that came from that,” Cameron said.

“We did have good discussions with people in both neighbourhoods on both sides of 26th Street. It’s good to see us moving forward and having done that consultation.”

In a previous interview with the Sun, Allard said the trees along the road have to be replaced because they have gotten too large and have damaged the sidewalks, curbs and underground equipment.

He said the elm trees are also prone to Dutch elm disease and will be replaced by a different kind of tree. He didn’t know what kind.

The reconstruction will not include upgrades to either the Park or Victoria intersections. The original plan had the Park Avenue intersection being redone, but that plan was scrapped for this project.

“If we were to include it, we were of the opinion that we were not going to get to the construction of it until 2026,” Allard said.

The intersection will be redone as part of a later project, through a different bidding process. That work is supposed to happen in July 2026.

Allard said the tender for it should go out this winter. The city is expecting the project will cost around $700,000 and include new traffic lights.

The timeline, he said, is the same as if it were part of the main project, but allows more flexibility for planning.

“I’m somewhat disappointed that we’re not doing the intersection at the same time, but we’re getting there,” said Coun. Greg Hildebrand (Ward 5).

Victoria Avenue is a provincially controlled road, so that intersection would have to be repaired through the province.

Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7) excused himself during the 26th Street portion of the meeting due to a possible perceived conflict of interest, as he works for a sister company of one of the businesses that bid on the project. Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2) wasn’t in attendance at the meeting, although he did appear over Teams to speak on an unrelated matter about his ward.

Twenty-sixth Street was voted as the sixth worst road in Manitoba last month in CAA’s annual provincewide vote.

» alambert@brandonsun.com