Two Vaughan companies had a good couple of days late last week as the provincial government announced $45 million in pre-election contracts for 400-series highway extensions in Caledon and East Gwillimbury.

The money is being split between B. Gottardo Construction Ltd. of Woodbridge and Toronto Zenith Contracting Ltd. of Concord.

Transportation minister Donna Cansfield made the announcements, the first of which, awarded to Gottardo, was a $42-million contract to extend Hwy. 410. She announced the $2.6-million Toronto Zenith project the next day.

“It’s a fairly large contract as far as the Ministry of Transportation goes,” said Brian Morris, Gottardo’s project manager on the Hwy. 410 extension. “Most MTO projects vary in size from about $2 million to about $80 million.

“It is a large project.”

Gottardo’s portion of the Hwy. 410 extension is already under construction and should be completed in September, 2009.

Toronto Zenith’s more modest $2.6-million project has likewise already begun and should be completed by the end of this year.

“Yeah, Gottardo’s $42-million kind of overshadows ours, I know,” laughed Tim Follwell, vice president of construction at Toronto Zenith. “It’s a small project, this one, (but) it’s good for us, being a Concord company.

“Business is pretty good right now and it looks positive for the future. Seems like there’s going to be a lot of money put into infrastructure.”

Vaughan Today 
Friday, August 31, 2007 
Page: 7 
Section: Vaughan Business 
Byline: Philip Alves