VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – City Administrator Gwen Crawford talked about the bidding process and timeline that has been questioned by a few Valley City residents.
Crawford said there was $1.4 million of Federal Funds programmed for 2023 that needed to be obligated this year or the City would lose the funds. In addition, the City also received $625,000 in federal funding through the Carbon Reduction Program (CRP) for the LED lights and sidewalk work being done as part of the project if it were to be done this year.
Because of the March 30, 2023 bid being higher than the original estimate, we modified the construction phasing on 2nd Ave NE/3rd St NE/3rd Ave NE to allow it to be done over two construction seasons. This brought the unit prices in line with the May 9, 2023 bid from Sellin Brothers; however, we didn’t have a previous bid to compare to. I think it is reasonable to say that the bid would have been significantly higher without the change. In addition, knowing what we knew in regard to pricing coming in for utility work, the City proactively requested an additional $218,000 of cost-share through the North Dakota Dept. of Water Resources for potential increases in water main improvements.
The total construction cost is estimated to be approximately $5.5 million (bid price) the city awarded the contract to Strata Corporation out of Grand Forks, they are the prime contractor for the 2nd Ave NE project. Sellin Brothers is a subcontractor to them, they are based out of Hawley, Minnesota.
KLJ engineer Chad Petersen said regarding the project schedule, there are approximately 6 weeks remaining in the planned schedule to have Phase 1 completed by October 7th for Phase 1.
Petersen said, as of today, the contractor is probably a little behind schedule, but they do have some time to make up ground. The underground work is going a little slower than anticipated, primarily in the back fill of trenches. They have dealt with a little bit of rain since they started the utility work as well as the need to dry the soil prior to back filling to get proper compaction.