Lakeshore council unanimously approved awarding a tender of $43,911,679 to North America Construction Ltd. for the Denis St. Pierre Pollution Control Plant Expansion Project at their regular meeting on Tuesday.
Mayor Tom Bain says the fact that right now they have a freeze on development means they had to focus on existing infrastructure.
"It's a matter of we have to do something with our sewage treatment plant, and this will allow us to more than double the size of it and really get our economy back moving again."
How council planned to pay for project wasn't discussed at the meeting, but Bain says town staff have given councillors a number of alternatives to find ways to pay for it.
"Using reserves through development charges and a few other ways that we can come up with the money, but council has decided to put that off to the next meeting where they can give it more of their attention and make sure how they fund it is done properly," Bain said.
The work will be able to move ahead now, and council will dig into the finer details of finding the funds later.
Bain says this project is extremely important to the municipality going forward.
"We've had to say no to a couple of projects, one of them even last night for a retirement home where we don't have the capacity to allow them to go ahead at this time," he continued. "It's something where we've got to go ahead get that plant enlarged and then we'll be so to speak back in business."
Bain says it should take roughly a year to a year and a half for the expansion project to be up and running.
- with files from Rob Hindi