A Vancouver-based company with a local connection has been hired to oversee the construction of the $31.4-million athletes' village for the 2007 Canada Winter Games.

The event will be hosted in Whitehorse.

Project manager Mike Frasher said this morning the contract was awarded this week to Dominion Fairmile, with Randy Shewen, a local construction manager, acting as the local contact and representative.

Frasher said Dominion Fairmile was hired for $930,000.

The company beat out Ketza-Monad JV, the joint venture company of Ketza Construction of Whitehorse and PCL-Monad Constructors Ltd. out of Edmonton, the same company building the new multiplex for the Games.

There was also a bid from the Inuvik office of Dowland Contracting.

Originally, he explained, the plan was to hire Ketza-Monad directly as the construction managers for the project. However, the parties were unable to reach an agreement during negotiations in May.

The tender for clearing and stripping the site next to Yukon College closes today. It's budgeted for somewhere between $200,000 and $250,000, Frasher explained.

He said the tender for construction of the concrete foundation will close next week, and is expected to come in at somewhere around $1 million.

The pre-tender notice to provide the two village complexes with water and sewer goes out today. Frasher said that work is also expected to come in somewhere around $250,000.

Also closing next week will be the tender for construction of the modular units that will make up the 48 suites for the larger residence and the 24 units for the smaller building.

Frasher said there is $10 million budgeted for that work. Details for the main corridors for both buildings which will link the modular wings on each side are still being worked out, he said.

'So in the next week, you will actually see contractors on the site doing some work,' Chris Morrissey, general manager for the local host society, said this morning.

'Yukon Electrical (Co. Ltd.) is already up there getting some of the poles ready.'

Of the $31.4 million budgeted for the project, the Yukon government has provided a $2.55-million commitment, the city has pledged $8.15 million and the federal Canada Games organization has put up $2.7 million.

Of the $31.4 million, $26.5 is earmarked to cover construction while the remaining $5 million is dedicated to cover other expenses such as design and fees for both project and construction management.

While politicians and senior officials with the local Games organization have readily admitted time is tight for the village, they're also confident the two buildings will be ready by next November's deadline.

The Games will see some 3,600 athletes, coaches and managers participate in two waves of approximately 1,800 over a two-week period in February 2007.

Frasher explained the plan is to have the concrete foundation work completed by the end of October, at about the same time the first modular units should start arriving on the site.

He said the winning contractor for the modular units will in all likelihood have to have an existing manufacturing plant as a partner. Of the six companies that have picked up contract packages, two are local.

Once the Games are concluded, the village facilities will be used as student family residences and affordable housing options managed by the Yukon Housing Corp.