05-11-2015 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, May 11, 2015 7:00 o'clock p.m. 12. WATERTOWN ROAD AND STUBBS BAY ROAD REHABILITATION AWARD (continued) The City received four bids. The low bidder was Bituminous Roadways with a bid of $684,481.30. Edwards noted this bid was lower than the next lowest bid by a couple hundred thousand dollars and $300,000 below the engineering estimate, which is very good news. Edwards stated the Council will need to decide whether to proceed forward with the project, the funding for the project, and whether to authorize Bolton & Menk to provide construction oversight at a not to exceed cost of $69,100. The Watertown Road portion of the project may be funded with municipal state aid funds. Stubbs Bay Road is not eligible for MSA funds. Resources could be allocated from other funds, such as the 2014 General Fund Balance or borrowed from the Permanent Improvement Revolving Fund. If the City did spend the money on Stubbs Bay Road, they will still have a significant amount remaining in order to do the improvements on Baldur Park Road. Edwards stated construction will begin in June with completion expected by the end of the summer. Levang asked what the City's experience is with Bituminous Roadways. Consulting Engineer Martini stated he is not aware if they have done work in Orono before but that they are a contractor that does this type of work on a regular basis. Martini indicated he has no concerns about their ability to do the job. Walsh stated Bituminous Roadways is a pretty big operation. Walsh asked how the City can get better on estimating of projects. Walsh stated he would also like to get some input on how the process worked with Blue Book. Martini stated the City started this process last year, and that when they were putting the feasibility study together, they looked at similar projects to see what was going on with the bidding climate. Martini stated what was happening last summer was the construction industry became more and more competitive and contractors were very busy. In addition, blacktop prices were very high last year. Martini noted he came to the Council once or twice with a revised estimate where it was increased. Martini stated the bulk of the project consists of bituminous and removal and that they attempted to figure out what was an appropriate estimate for the blacktop prices for 2015. Since that time the price of bituminous has decreased. Martini indicated the other thing that was in play from the feasibility study was the amount of stormwater work that would be done. As the blacktop prices were coming down, they were also adding some more stormwater work into the project than what was originally included. Martini stated when these projects get stretched out over time; the costs get to be more of a moving target. In looking at the bids received, it seems the $800,000 range was what most of the contractors felt was the value of the job and that Bituminous Roadways might really want the project or may have found some efficiencies to give the City a very competitive price. Martini stated it is their goal to keep the estimates as close as possible since that is the tool the City needs to be able to plan for projects like this. Page 14 of 25