A glitch during construction of the Fourth Street pedestrian overpass isn’t expected to have any impact the project’s budget or timeline.
The overpass project that’s now underway at the foot of Fourth Street will include a pedestrian walkway, an elevator and stairs leading into Westminster Pier Park. One of the seven piles being installed as part of the structure’s foundation failed during installation, so an additional pile had to be installed to complete the foundation structure.
“It hit an obstruction,” said Keith Whiteley, an engineering technologist with the city. “In this case, it didn’t hit it dead on. It hit it at the edge of the pile. It creased the pile and it folded the pile at 80 feet deep.”
Testing and a camera sent deep underground confirmed the pile had failed.
“We had a new pile put in about a metre-and-a-half away from it,” Whiteley told The Record. “It went in perfectly.”
Although the failure caused a “bit of a delay,” Whiteley said it’s not expected to greatly impact the completion date of the overpass.
“There is a bit of slack time in the schedule. They are working to get back on schedule as fast as possible,” he said. “Nothing else stopped. Fabrication of the superstructure, the steel, the elevator – all that (work) continued on. It was just a delay within the pile cap system.”
Once the piles were completely installed, the pile cap was poured on top. He explained that a platform is built on top of the piles, once they are in place.
“All the piles are connected together,” Whiteley said. “That connects all the piles together so they work in unison.”
According to Whiteley, the project is “fully out of the ground now” and working toward a completion date this fall.
“The anticipated date is probably in October,” he said. “That’s the goal.”
The structure will allow people to access Westminster Pier Park via Fourth Street, near the parkade. In addition to stairs, the structure will provide elevator access into the waterfront park.
“On the front half of the platform is a viewing area. It is a completely walk-around elevator,” Whiteley said. “If you are coming in off of Columbia Street, you enter in the elevator from that direction and you will leave facing the water. It’s a walk-through elevator.”
Westminster Pier Park opened on the waterfront in June 2012. Since that time, it has only been accessible by a parking lot at the west side of the site.
“It is going to be a gorgeous looking project when it is finished,” Whiteley said.
In January, the city awarded a $2.5 million contact to B&B Heavy Civil Construction Ltd.
The city had originally budgets $1.3 million for the overpass, increased it to $1.85 million and later sought feedback from contractors who had submitted bids to find out how the city could reduce costs. In response to that feedback from contractors, the city made some changes to the overpass from what had originally been proposed and approved the $2.5 million budget.
“The construction costs to date are currently within the allocated budget for the project,” stated a staff report to council. “The cost for the additional piling work is anticipated to be covered within the project contingency allowance.”
