Fairview area set for busy construction season

Already the Fairview area of the Prince Rupert waterfront is becoming a congested place, with work underway on the marinl floats and docking facilities in the area. But check back in a couple of weeks and things should be quite interesting on the west end watefront.

Set to begin shortly and with a very short timeline for development will be the now million dollar repairs to the Alaska Ferry Dock, a now mandatory development with the closure of the dock due to safety concerns.

Still to come in the not too distant future will be the nine million dollar renovation to the BC Ferry facilities in Prince Rupert, designed to make the terminal capable and ready to welcome the soon to be completed Northern Expedition, which will take up its duties on the North coast upon its arrival from Germany in 2009.

The BC Ferry renovations get an early start at the end of May and then the major work begins in November.

The Daily News had details on the project in Friday's paper.

B.C. Ferries joins revamp of waterfront with project
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, April 04, 2008

Page two

B.C. Ferries will be spending about $9 million on its Prince Rupert facilities this year in preparation for the arrival of its new vessel, the Northern Expedition, in the spring of 2009.
Deborah Marshall, spokesperson for B.C. Ferries, said the company will be beginning the work on its facilities at the end of May, in preparation for more intensive November construction, which will require B.C. Ferries to use the Alaska Marine Highway System Dock.

"Our project will accommodate the new Northern Expedition, with a new ramp, a ramp abuttement, floating pontoon and tie up dolphin," said Marshall.

Currently, the Alaska Marine Highway System ferries are docking at the B.C. Ferries dock while the city of Prince Rupert pumps a million dollars into fixing those facilities by the weekend of May 26.

The city received an engineering report last week that stated the facility was unsafe and needed to be closed until it could be repaired.

However, this is not expected to impact B.C. Ferries operations or the upgrades in May.

"The agreement that we have made with them is that our operations get first priority, but certainly we are happy to help them out as well as making arrangements to use the city's dock in November," she said.

The construction work in May will be done by Fraser River Pile and Dredge, which is currently working on B.C. Ferries docking facilities in Skidegate on similar construction work.

The Northern Expedition requires B.C. Ferries to make dock modifications at all three of its terminal along the northern runs - Prince Rupert, Skidegate and Port Hardy.

The work that begins in Prince Rupert in May will take about two months and then the work will commence again in November and require B.C. Ferries to dock at the AMHS facilities for five weeks.

"Fraser River Pile is already at Skidegate now. Then, they will come do some work in Prince Rupert (in May) and then go down to Port Hardy and come back to Prince Rupert in November and Skidegate in the New Year," she said.

Marshall said the Northern Expedition, which will be used on the Inside Passage, is currently under construction and should be leaving Germany in January 2009, with an anticipated in-service date during the spring of 2009.

With the recently announced overhaul of the AMHS dock by the City of Prince Rupert, the entire waterfront from the Fairview Commercial Fishing Harbour east to B.C. Ferries will have been overhauled by 2009.

Fairview's Commercial Fishing Habour's deteriorated timber wharf is currently being replaced with a new, larger structure that will provide a functional multi-service area platform and enhance access, loading and vehicle traffic circulation.

That project is worth $2.5 million.