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Capital Projects

Capital Projects are part of the City's Civic Operations and help maintain or improve municipal infrastructure.

To view a list of current and completed capital projects in Kamloops, which includes traffic information, impact maps and project scope, visit our Let's Talk page. 

Capital Projects on Let's Talk

For current traffic impact information, you can also view the Kammute page on our site. To report an issue, click the button below.

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The Capital Projects Promise

For the past five years, the City of Kamloops Capital Projects Division has been looking beyond the tradition design-bid-build method for public infrastructure. New approaches and practices aim to be more inclusive, collaborative, efficient, and cost-effective. The changes have resulted in more collaborative working relationships internally and with external vendors.

This inclusive process encompasses construction management practices, design/build proposals, master service agreements, and integrated project delivery (IPD). Team participation became a part of all project decisions, from the planning phase to project implementation. The city has experienced a variety of benefits as a result of this participation, including:

  • Increased creativity and collaboration within all phases of its infrastructure projects due to all internal and external project partners (owner, consultants, contractors, operations) being involved early and throughout the life of the project.
  • More transparent estimating, planning, and procurement approaches that help identify opportunities and potential challenges earlier.
  • Well-planned and managed community engagement with residents. This has included a range of tools to share information about the work and anticipated impacts for residents. On tool, a dedicated project liaison working on the ground, has helped to address people's questions and concerns as they arise.
  • Frequent and cooperative team meetings where ideas and information can be shared in a supportive environment and concerns can be addressed and/or mitigated early.
  • Increased opportunity for tracking and measuring results at all phases of the project because of the inclusive approach and debriefing built into project processes.
  • Complex projects that are consistently delivered under budget and ahead of schedule.

The success relies on the principle that key partners who have contributions to make in the best-practice delivery of public infrastructure should also have a greater share of the responsibility in completing the project. For the City, this has included developing scope specific, multi-year agreements. With these agreements, projects can include all involved as early as possible in the delivery process. This holistic planning approach has improved the value of projects. This way, there is a unified and agreed upon path forward and greater understanding of that path from the partners. The change has allowed the City to be better prepared and nimble in completing projects and has created opportunities for unified messages to the public about how projects are going to be completed, as well as the impacts and outcomes. Results over the past few years are further described below.

“To use a sports analogy, you don’t just go play the game. This is all about leveraging the power of the team.”
- Darren  Crundwell, Capital Projects Manager

Prior to 2017, the organization primarily relied on a conventional design/bid/build (low bid tender) delivery model for capital projects. However, projects were rarely delivered within the construction budget and often had to rely on contingencies. Substantial completion dates identified in the tender documents were often not met, as well.  Through this traditional process, it was difficult for the City to be able to factor in a contractor’s capacity, past performance, or ability to complete the work. 

Since adapting the project delivery process, the City has been able to better manage project risk. The adapted process introduced service agreements that outline project implementation and management before work starts. It also put a focus on having more upfront discussions with the project team. As a result, project risk has shifted from the City's responsibility, to risk sharing by the project partners.

Additionally, the City, in partnership with the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc (TteS), developed chance-find procedures. This is a part of a commitment to acknowledging the City's location on TteS territory, within the unceded ancestral lands of the Secwépemc Nation. The new procedures include specific cultural heritage protocols. In the event of a chance find, the project team can follow protocol without necessarily shutting down the project.

"I think one of the most important things with this way of doing business is the relationships. What we realized in working this way is that we have a unified voice with all the stakeholders, and unified messages that went from the project owner, to the contractor, to the public. People felt like they always had someone to call or ask."
- Alistair Elliot, Construction Manager, Extreme Excavating

The efforts have contributed to significant positive results including:

  1. Completing projects earlier through increased collaboration: The Victoria Street West sanitary sewer replacement and road rehabilitation/beautification project provides a great example of the process in action. The project was estimated with a two-year timeline that would interrupt traffic flow and impact businesses along a busy corridor into Kamloops downtown. However, many small changes helped the project wrap quickly, smoothly, and on budget. By adjusting work schedules to continue through the night, more work was completed each day. A dedicated project liaison was brought on to help manage project communications. The liaison was in regular contact with businesses, residents, and the public. This frequent communication helped manage the inconvenience of traffic reroutes due to the work. Additionally, crew worked closely with utility providers, including BC Hydro and Telus, to mitigate potential hold-ups. The result say the project completed six months earlier than the original timeline. The approach has been replicated on several other large, complex infrastructure projects in different areas of the City with significant success. 
  2. Greater predictability toward spending: From the financial planning side, it has become easier to manage risk. As the project delivery has evolved, so have ways of looking at predictability and project accountability. This improvement is largely due to early outlining of contract expectations and the management of risk as a team. The renovation of the City’s Canada Games Aquatic Centre  (IPD) is a recent example of this. The project was completed ahead of schedule and under budget allowing for additional items to be added to the project scope because the team found efficiencies. This renovation project was also successfully completed during the early months of the pandemic, despite additional challenges because of the integrated team approach.
  3. Proactive and ongoing communication: The City recognizes that complex infrastructure projects, which may take months or years to complete, require significant planning from a communication perspective – a process that has also evolved and improved over the past five years. By including communications planners early in the project, the City has been able to implement tactics and tools that are pro-active and wide-reaching and help to educate and engage the public through all phases of the work. This includes digital and print communication, internal staff communication, media relations and media and city council tours of the construction sites.
  4. Improving response to stakeholders who are most impacted: The City has hired an ongoing capital projects liaison. This is an additional step to engage with stakeholders. The new liaison is available to help answer businesses and residents questions and concerns. 
  5. Increased opportunities for tracking and measuring project results: Evolving the City’s capital project delivery has also included opportunities to measure results. The City has implemented “lessons learned” meetings and anonymous surveys for all project members to participate in so that feedback may improve future project delivery.