Replacement of the Oamaru stone retaining wall in Severn St, Oamaru, will cost $689,299.
A contract for the work was awarded this week to Fulton Hogan by the Waitaki District Council.
Fulton Hogan is working on the major traffic safety improvement project through central Oamaru and it is not known when work on the wall will begin.
The retaining wall, a major feature of the State Highway 1 approach to central Oamaru, was built about 70 years ago, by the Oamaru Beautifying Society, one of many projects it carried out around Oamaru early last century.
But it now needs major work. It is deteriorating in places, becoming unstable and unsafe.
The council's assets group manager, Neil Jorgensen, said the retaining wall would be replaced with a concrete reinforced wall with an Oamaru stone facade.
The new retaining wall would cost about $554,000, subsidised 57% by the New Zealand Transport Agency. The stone facade would cost another $135,100, funded from council depreciation funds.
The contract involves the replacement of the lowest of the three tiers as well as a section of the wall on Douglas Tce.
The bottom retaining wall would be removed in 2m-long sections. The reinforced concrete replacement would stabilise the top two tiers, which would be restored.
Vegetation would be removed, particularly trees whose roots had gone through the walls and destabilised them, and a new landscaping plan was being developed.
