Madawaska Land Port of Entry On Track for Late 2023 Opening

MADAWASKA, Maine (WAGM) -

The Madawaska Land Port of Entry is On Schedule to be completed by late 2023. Newssource8′s Brian Bouchard has a status update on this story.

Alexandria Kelly, the Project Manager for the General Services Administration’s Madawaska Land Port of Entry Project says, it’s going well so far.

“We are beginning to start interior framing and interior mechanical/electrical and plumbing rough in is complete and drywall of the interior is about to begin. So we are currently still tracking for late 2023 opening.”

Kelly says though the project has experienced complications, such as supply chain issues, the partnerships have been very successful.

“These projects come with an incredible amount of complexity especially since you have an international bridge landing within 200 feet of our primary inspection lanes but Maine DOT and GSA and all of the stakeholders/international partners have worked fantastic together. I think everyone knows that we’ve been experiencing generally in this country and around the world that we have material availability and supply chain issues. I think that the project has done a fantastic job of identifying those and maybe identifying alternative resources. However I think that we at GSA and CBP and our contractor, we are poised and experienced to understand how to navigate the complexities and the issues that arise and to overcome them and move the project forward.”

One of the complexities surrounding the Land Port of Entry project was actually in regards to Maine DOT’s project of the International Bridge, and working with the Canadian Government to ensure all ongoing projects would be successful. Ultimately this determined where the new port would be.

“We identified 12 different locations for the sighting of the bridge and the land port of entries. Once it was determined that CBSA who is the Canadian land port of entry was going to remain in their current location because they had just constructed it back in the 80s I believe. We determined that we were going to use the previous Twin Rivers site that we procured. From that time once we established that we worked very closely, because we had to come in at the same height.”

Despite complications, Kelly says this project has been a great example of how projects this size should be carried out.

“I truly believe that this has been a model project for all future projects of how you work so closely with different counterparts who have different goals and needs in order to deliver the best possible projects for each entity and for the community. We are so committed to providing a quality land port of entry to the community and getting this up and running as quickly as possible.”

GSA Hopes to have to completed by late 2023

Brian Bouchard, NewsSource8

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