The Palisades Road repaving project will move forward this spring, despite being over the engineer’s original estimated bids.
L.L. Pelling was the only bidder for the resurfacing contract, with an estimated cost of $386,769. That was more than $90,000 over the engineer’s original estimate of $290,000.
City engineer David Schechinger said the areas of the bid that have the most influence on the price of the project are excavation, pavement removal and traffic control, all of which were significantly higher than the anticipated costs.
Schechinger attempted to reduce costs on the project by removing the excavation and pavement removal items from the budget.
“The traffic control, contractor coordination and overall time the project would be under construction would likely increase and the resulting cost savings would be insignificant,” Schechinger said.
As well, Schechinger noted waiting to rebid for hopes of lower bids because of future projects in the area does not seem promising, either.
“Further delays in repairing this road could lead to further deterioration of the road surface, which would require additional pavement removal at a further increased cost,” Schechinger said.
“Every year we move away from repaving Palisades Road, the road gets worse,” said city administrator Chris Nosbisch.
The city had set aside roughly $450,000 for the project, so even with the cost being higher than anticipated, there is funding available.
Council member Debra Herrmann asked if Lisbon’s resurfacing of Business 30 was moving forward, and, if the projects could be tackled at the same time, would there be any potential savings.
Schechinger said this project is one that he was looking at to see if prices had been more favorable to move forward with that repaving job, and that the contracts for both jobs including Mount Vernon’s section of Business 30, would likely not be enough to get an additional bidders to the area.
Nosbisch also said the Palisades Road project has a hard start and end date, as it has to be completed in the time span between school ending and the new school year beginning.
Council member Paul Tuerler said it is rare when a project is delayed for too long that the costs ever go down.
“We’ve at times let projects go on for so long that weren’t addressed that we ended up paying more in material costs because of the disrepair of the road,” Tuerler said.
Nosbisch said the truck traffic on the road, especially during the Highway 30 and construction projects at the schools, have put more wear and tear on that road surface.