News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Construction bids for Phase I of the East Spring Street Sidewalk project came in some $309,000 over the engineer’s estimates.
Cookeville Public Works Director Blake Mayo said the lone bid from Rogers Group came in at $960,000. He said that they reached out to their consultant to get recommendations for the next step.
“They previously rebid a project and bids came back higher, so they recommended against that,” Mayo said “The consultant then reached out to TDOT asking about four items that were quite a bit higher than the engineer’s estimate. The contract then came back with justifications for those four items, which TDOT concurred with all four.”
City Manager James Mills said that when the project was originally bid in 2014, it was an estimated a little over $1 million with the city investing about $200,000. He said that based on current estimates, the city’s contribution to match TDOT’s grant will be some $584,000 for just phase I, from Old Kentucky Road to Raider Drive.
At Tuesday afternoon’s council work session, Mills and city council members discussed what it would look like if the city walked away from the second phase of the project which stretches from Raider Drive to Denton Avenue. He said that the second phase would probably cost the city some $770,000 if it did the work in-house, but that the matching portion could be less than that.
“TDOT’s not going to pay for anything if we walk away,” Mills said. “We’re on the hook for everything that’s been expended. So all the right of way that’s been acquired, all the design that’s been completed, we’re on the hook for for the entire route. So that’s whatever that is, I imagine it’s going to be the hundreds of thousands.”
“The choice there is, then based on that and what it would cost for us to put it in, he said $700 and something thousand, versus what our match will be when this is bid is what you have to weight out.”
City Council will consider approving the bid at its Thursday meeting.
