In a few month’s time, it will be the Kamloops North Shore’s turn to deal with construction headaches and traffic detours from an underground sewar replacement project.

“I believe it’s the biggest linear civil project the City has ever done,” said Matt Kachel, City of Kamloops Capital Projects Manager.

The City of Kamloops has confirmed it’s launched a process through BC Bid to hire a contractor to help complete the final phase of a sanitary system upgrade along Tranquille.

This project will also include the completion of the City’s active transportation corridor alone the same route.

It will include shutting down Tranquille from the intersection of Crestline Street to Southill Street while crews complete the work.

“Most folks would have driven by and seen the work we did at the Gateway Project there at the corner near the Airport,” said Kachel.  “Basically that’s going to continue all the way to Southill, with a multi-use path, drainage swale and, of course, the big sanitary trunk main under the road, which is the main driver of the project.”

Kachel says their initial plan is to start preliminary excavations along Tranquille sometime during the spring to determine a more precise location of where the sewar main they’re replacing is located underneath the roadway.

“We’re expecting probably toward the start of the summer is when the major traffic control systems will start to get set up, and the disruptions will start to come,” noted Kachel.

Construction impacts mostly localized

Kachel says the project intends to follow a similar approach used by the City this year along Lansdowne Street in downtown Kamloops, chewing away at the project a couple of blocks at a time to allow local traffic to find alternate routes around the shutdown of Tranquille, which will be closed in both directions through the duration of the sewar line replacement.

While the ultimate goal of the North Shore project is similar to that of Lansdowne — the replacement of a sewar line — Kachel suggests the similarities between the two projects end there.

“This one’s a live sewar main.  It’s a huge trunk main, so we have to bypass-pump everything,” noted Kachel when discussing the some of the challenges crews and area residents are going to be facing.  “We have to basically work on this one live.  Set up everything.  Build the new pipe bypass pump, and then shift everything over [to the next section of the ongoing project once finished].  It’s quite the undertaking.”

The sewar main under Tranquille is responsible for collecting and transporting around half of all the raw sewage produced throughout Kamloops on a daily basis.

Despite the critical role the line under Tranquille plays in waste treatment for approximately 39,000 residents in north Kamloops , Kachel says most people shouldn’t notice any problems with their toilets or other drainage.

“There’ll be some individual disruption as we tie-in folks that are directly connected to the main,” noted Kachel.  “It would be coordinated with the individuals [property owners along the construction route].  Like, ‘hey, for a few hours, don’t flush your toilet’ type of thing.  But it won’t be a major disruption.”

While locals along the construction route will maintain their utilities with minimal disruption, other parts of their lives and properties will take more of a direct hit.

“Existing boulevard parking will no longer be possible. Trees, fences, and other homeowner fixtures in the road right-of-way will need to be removed or relocated onto private property,” noted the City on its Let’s Talk information page about the project.  “Additional road right-of-way will be required from several properties where the current right-of-way is narrower than usual.”

Many of the property owners along the construction route, which will start on the west end of the project at Crestline and work east to Southill, will see their properties fundamentally altered once the work is finally done.

“Driveways will need to be regraded and restored for a distance into your property to match the new multi-use pathway or sidewalk elevation. We will attempt to keep the grade change within reasonable limits; however, some driveways will increase in grade and may require retaining walls along the sides,” warned the City.  “Driveway access width will be formalized and limited with curb letdowns.   Boulevard regrading may extend into private property where there is a substantial elevation difference between the new multi-use pathway or sidewalk.”

Project blooms from Airport revitalization

As the “biggest linear civic project” in the history of Kamloops, Phase 3 of the sewar work was born of a more simple concept, but one which grew as circumstances changed.

Its roots can be traced back to the addition of the 2nd terminal at the Kamloops Airport in 2009, which ultimately spawned the “Tranquille Gateway” concept.

This idea was to make the main corridor leading too and from downtown Kamloops and the city’s Airport more attractive, not only for tourists, but also for prospective clients who might want to set up business operations at YKA.

As “Gateway” gained traction among those in the community, the process was formalized in 2014, with the creation of the Tranquille Road Beautification-Enhancement and Gateway Task Force.

Different concepts would be bounced around, before the Council at the time would land on a $7.4 million dollar plan that “balances continuity of the design elements along the corridor, provides a functional and aesthetically pleasing design and ensures the overall costs are kept in check.”

That had been scaled back from previous ideas, costs for which had been peggged at around $24 million at the time, but included an active transportation concept — something which has since been revived in the current iteration of “Gateway.”

Flash forward a couple of years and the addition of underground work into the planning process and — without much fanfare — Phase 1 was quietly wrapped up in 2017 at an estimated cost of $4.4 million dollars.

It’s been sitting idle ever since then, while the rest of the project slowly moved forward.

“It’s ready to be connected.. not exactly to the Gateway Work, but some work we did a few years prior to that to connect over to the lift station that’s near the airport.   It was quite a few years ago, and it was out of the way, and a lot of people didn’t see it or were disrupted by it, so it wasn’t very news worthy.”

Phase 2 of the sewar replacement project between 12th Street and Southill was originally set to start and finish in 2020.

However, its launched ended up being delayed due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As crews for Phase 2 were working and learning how to navigate the confusion of the early-pandemic health protocols, tragedy also struck in Kamloops.

The Snowbirds crash in May, 2020 and the death of Cpt. Jenn Casey would eventually add to the “Gateway” initiative through an accelerated development of Fulton Field Park and a memorial to Casey.

Plans for the Park redevelopment were being drafted at the same time construction of Phase 2 was wrapping, after the COVID-19 delay pushed back its completion to the summer of 2021.

Originally assigned a budget of $9.9 million in 2020, Phase 2 would end up coming in somewhere around $11 million, which was a revision from an earlier $13 million projection.

While Phase 3 had already been scheduled for a 2025 start, the focus of reconstruction on Tranquille would shift again in the interim, this time to a portion of the project which hadn’t been contemplated until after the sewar line work.

A repaving project on Tranquille between Ord Road and Fulton Field Park was given priority, allowing guests arriving at the Kamloops Airport a smoother ride as they made their way here for the Memorial Cup in May, 2023.

That work was able to be completed ahead of the Memorial Cup.

Construction on Fulton Field Park and the Jenn Casey Memorial would eventually wrap up just shortly before the official opening on August 29th, 2024.

The costs for the Fulton Field Park development, as well as the Ord Road portion of the Tranquille upgrades, have not been made public, though a line-item for Tranquille Gateway Improvement in the 2024 City budget comes up at just under $3.6 million.

That figure, combined with costs for the previous phases, would put the costs of the now-completed parts of the project at around $20 million.

The cost of Phase 3 is going to well-surpass that.

“It’s huge.”

Originally envisioned as a $16.4 million dollar project in 2020 for the sewar replacement alone, Phase 3 of the Tranquille Road Sanitary Main and Road Enhancement Project now has a budget of $28 million dollars.

“It’s also the hardest section that we have to do, and the longest, which is why its so expensive,” said Capital Projects Manager Matt Kachel.  “There’s lots of fun things to coordinate with, like BC Hydro and Fortis.  A lot of stuff that people probably don’t think about that’s under the ground that we have to shift around.”

Timelines for the launch of Phase 3 are not clear yet.

However, we do know that it will not be done until at least 2026.

“I’m hoping maybe year two is the back of curb stuff, like restoration work, where we’re essentially off the road.  But it kind of depends a bit on when we’re able to start, and also what the contractor believes we can get accomplished within the confines of the traffic control plan.”

Kachel does say the initial plans are to start preliminary excavations in the spring to determine a more precise location of the sewar main under Tranquille.

From there, the heavy construction should begin in the early summer.

He says more precise times will be forthcoming once the tendering process for project is finished.

Unlike the 2024 Lansdowne project, which generated a lot of traffic headaches, particularly at the start of the project, Kachel says they don’t anticipate this project will be as challenging to navigate for most drivers.

“The nice thing is over there, we do have a bit of a grid system,” noted Kachel.  “It’s pretty easy to get around in Brock.  People can go over to Ord [Road].  A lot of the truck traffic can go over that way.”

Kachel does concede that those living in the immediate neighborhood may not agree.

“I think the major impacts are just going to be the local traffic… people who have to get to those individual properties,” said Kachel.  “Folks will be able to drive around our construction site, so it shouldn’t be as disruptive as Lansdowne in that regard.

Locals and anyone else with concerns about the project will get their first chance to hear about the project later in January.

The City has scheduled the first information drop-in session for the project on January 23, 2025 at the Sports Centre Lounge at McArthur Island.