Construction on Tank Street in Petrolia starts this week.

Henry Heyink Construction of Chatham will be rebuilding the road from the Oil Heritage District Community Centre to Discovery Line near the new community soccer fields.

Officials said on social media, Tank Street will be down to one lane between Discovery Line and the Y until May 28 as the construction is complete.

Town officials ask drivers to take an alternate route if possible.

The project has been in the works for years and faced some controversy when council hired a contractor. All six of the contractors bid over the original $1,245,000 estimate given by Petrolia’s Director of Operations, Mike Thompson.

Schouten Excavating had the lowest bid at $1.72 million and Heyink’s was the next qualified bid at just over $2.2 million. The town removed some of the work from the contract to bring the cost down, and the companies resubmitted their costs. When it was over, Heyink could complete the job for $1,282,327.79 – $1,758.27 less than the original low bidder’s second submission.

Officials said at the time that Heyink had completed a number of projects with the town and had a promised a quicker timeline than Schoten.

In the end, the cost for the project is still over budget by about $40,000.