The provincial government approved funding for 11 new projects submitted by city council as part of the Municipal Economic Enhancement Program (MEEP).
The 11 projects cost a combined $5,163,587. The biggest is the Marquis Rd. Extension project, estimated at around $2.25-million. City administrators say the roadway will serve as a new arterial for the West Hill area.
Prince Albert Carlton MLA Joe Hargrave said the infrastructure projects would improve the quality of life for Prince Albert residents while providing a much-needed boost to the economy.
“In these particular times, it is important that the City of Prince Albert be able to re-open as safely as possible and get its citizens back to work,” Hargrave said in a media release.
In addition to the Marquis Rd. Extension, MEEP funding will cover $1.4-million in pavement upgrades at various locations. That includes asphalt milling, recapping and concrete paving upgrades.
Other MEEP projects include a $500,000 sidewalk repair program, $325,000 for the Alfred Jenkins Playground Expansion and $200,000 for a storage cover-all building at the Municipal Service Centre.
“The infrastructure projects being funded by MEEP are critical to the City’s sustainability and growth and would not have been possible without the support of the provincial government,” Mayor Greg Dionne said in a media release.
MEEP funds will also be used to upgrade fire protection services, improve core IT infrastructure, purchase new management software that tracks city assets and maintenance, repairing the parking lot on 12th Street West, reconstructing park pathways at Lion’s Park and between St. Anne School and Arthur Pechey Public School, and widening Gary Anderson Way to reduce traffic congestion near the Art Hauser Centre.
Dionne told the Daily Herald that council would give local companies first priority when the projects came up for tender.
“We’re going to continue focusing on putting local, spelled capital L-O-C-A-L, people back to work,” he said in an interview last May. “That has my 100 per cent focus.”