Introduction
The initiation of the North Shore Boulevard Project is primarily prompted on the tenets that the Mount Low Parkway has experienced increased congestion levels due to the enormous growth in the Northern Beaches. The project is designed to construct a road linking Lionel Turner Drive and no. 151 Mount Low Parkway to the end of the existing stub of the North Shore Boulevard near the Bruce Highway. The huge economic development in the areas around Northern Beaches has proved to be a critical aspect of the future prosperity of Townville. Therefore, an immediate, optimal solution to creating enhanced and improved levels of development and congestion in the Northern Beaches is actually coming up with the North Shore Boulevard Project. A project approximated to keep a budget of $40 million with the exclusion of GST.
Generally, the rapidly growing North of Townsville became the basis of the North Shore Boulevard Project is pegged as there was a need to initiate a road construction with an aim of meeting the increasing demands on the Townsville local roads (Morse-Kahn, 2011). The 7 kilometer, $40 million North Shore Boulevard Project encompassed the construction of various cross drainage, two bridges over Stony Creek and Saunders Creek, a sewer rising main, street lights and traffic signals.
Purpose
The basic tenets on which the North Shore Boulevard Project is pegged on the provision of an immediate remedy to the traffic and congestion challenges experienced in Townville City due the speedy growth of the Northern Beaches area. After the confirmation of the Northern Beaches Road Network Optimization Project that there was highly increasing congestion levels for the Mount Low Parkway as due to the accelerated growth in the city, the need to seek for solutions to the challenge become inevitable. This ultimately prompted to the initiation of the North Shore Boulevard Project to result in the construction of a proposed corridor alignment running through the land currently owned by Owens, Sunland Group, Turner, Stockland, and Townsville Earthmoving (Wearne, 2015).
The process of executing the project would be an Elaborative engagement with specific stages of undertakings across various departments and stakeholders. First, the road to undertaking this North Shore Boulevard Project was the successful Council approval on 22nd July 2015 to give a green light to the land acquisition, design and construction of this alternative access known as the North Shore Boulevard. Moreover, the Council was better placed to negotiate and acquire the land from the owners to allow for the construction of the road corridor.
Secondly, the project entails designing and ensuring construction of about 7 kilometers of roadworks on the North Shore Boulevard, and about 1.7 kilometers on the Lionel Turner Drive. It will involve the construction of a two-lane road to the inside of the 50m wide road corridor and dual lane bridges over Sunders Creek and Stoney Creek. The designing will ensure that the existing stub of Lionel Turner Drive intersects with the North Shore Boulevard alongside putting up of sufficient road lighting. Besides all that, at the intersections of the Mount Low Parkway and North Shore Boulevard, and Lionel Turner Drive and North Shore Boulevard will have highly designed modern roundabout to ease congestion within the city.
Key Stakeholders
The key stakeholders of the North Shore Boulevard Project include:
Project (Owner, Townsville city council)/ Client/ Sponsor
The Townsville City Council takes a large portion of the project stakeholders, as it is the client of the project. It provides the regulation and guiding parameters on the standards of construction of the road corridor. The Townsville City Council is the only agency tasked with the responsibility of approving the North Shore Boulevard Project. This construction of the North Shore Boulevard is designed to be undertaken in this city and therefore the city management, which plays the Townsville City Council a critical role in the entire project designing and execution. The Townsville City Council provides environmental standards that the project must put into consideration, licensing of specific undertakings of the project among other legal and regulatory measures.
Project Customer / Operator / User
The project customer is the local community of the North Shore Boulevard. This includes the population living across the Northern Beaches locality. This population is the group of individuals faced with increasing congestion due the rapid growth and development of the Northern Beaches area.
Project Manager
The management of the project would essentially be tasked with ARC Construction. The ARC Construction Co., Inc. will be the overall project manager as it provides construction guidelines and the necessary technical know-how for the North Shore Boulevard Project. ARC Construction will be responsible for the construction phase of the North Shore Boulevard Project as stipulated within the project concept design that the Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd established (Wearne, 2015). ARC Construction has provided the four stages in which the general management and execution of the North Shore Boulevard Project will follow. These include; construction methods, construction schedule, site management functions, and the construction management plan. These are critical stages as the project is huge one involving constructing about 7 kilometers alongside two bridges.
Moreover, the project is administered by a Principal’s Representative. The Principal’s team would include nominated individuals, including financial advisor, Principal’s Representative, engineers, independent estimator, technical advisors, and inspectors. The Principal’s Representative uses the inspectors and the engineers to monitor the construction of the works.
Stakeholders
The North Shore Boulevard Project also encompasses some other key internal and external stakeholders which include:
The North Shore Boulevard Project design consultant
The design consultant for the North Shore Boulevard Project, Maunsell Australia Pty Ltd, is the agency that has been commissioned to provide the detailed bridge design and the concept road design. The design consultant, Maunsell allowed for the appointment of the Early Contractor Involvement after a comprehensive and concise concept designing.
The Environment North
A team of environment managers and planners in collaboration with the Townsville City Council worked with Biotropica Australia and Flanagan Consulting Group in providing ecological connectivity information for the design and construct (D&C) team for the new road corridor through a bushland / future urban area of the Townsville City (Morse-Kahn, 2011). The Environment North agency ensured that there is uphold of the requirement of the project to integrate with the adjacently approved master planned regions and the Council’s earlier established biodiversity corridors. The agency ensured that they obtained all the necessary environmental approvals and gave advice on construction management and design matters.
Early Contractor Involvement (ECI)
This is the body tasked with the responsibility to undertake the process of procuring the project contractor/designer. The process of procurement of the contractor would be carried out through the Townsville City Council’s Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) on a competitive basis of bidding.
References
Morse-Kahn, D. (2011). Lake Superior's historic North Shore: A guided tour. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press.
Wearne, S. (2015). Development of project engineers. International Journal Of Project Management, 3(3), 150-152.
