Portion of rehabilitation project along Grand Forks' 32nd Avenue South still planned for this year

Jun. 2—GRAND FORKS — A portion of a large rehabilitation project along 32nd Avenue South is still planned to happen this year.

Although the project was set to entail both an asphalt mill and overlay and concrete panel replacement, Assistant City Engineer David Kuharenko said the mill and overlay — along with curb work and ADA upgrades — will be the only portion to happen this year.

The segment of road, which stretches from I-29 to South Washington Street, was notably damaged coming out of the long winter. Mayor Brandon Bochenski even spoke about it at the beginning of his State of the City speech last month.

"We're going to hit this topic early," he said to laughter from the audience. "Potholes are a part of our spring season. Every year we deal with potholes, but this year has been one of the worst."

The change in this year's construction plan came after a lone bid for the project from Strata Corporation came in at $4,419,486, which was 173% over the engineer's estimate of $1,623,041. City Council members voted 4-2 to award the bid to Strata Corporation, but Kuharenko said the North Dakota Department of Transportation — which is funding a large portion of the total project cost — rejected the bid.

The NDDOT is planning to advertise for bids for the asphalt mill and overlay portion of the project at the end of June. Bid results are tentatively set to be presented to council members around the first week of July, "just to make sure we get that concurrence back to the state as quickly as possible," Kuharenko said.

"We're going to be in the beginning of July at that point in time and contracts still have to get signed and we need that project to get done as quickly as possible this summer," he said.

The asphalt mill and overlay will help fix the trouble areas where potholes have occurred along

32nd Avenue South.

"We want to avoid what we saw this past spring on 32nd," Kuharenko said.

While an exact engineer's estimate for the asphalt mill and overlay portion of the project isn't yet determined, Kuharenko said the project is estimated to cost between $1 million to $2 million. The project will be funded by a federal share of 80.93%, a state share of 9.07% and a local share of 10%. The city will be using the Street and Infrastructure Fund to cover its 10% share.

The concrete panel replacement portion of the project is set to be rebid by the NDDOT in the fall, with construction next year.

Kuharenko said the higher bid result for the project is reflective of the timeframe that bids were advertised. Bids for the rehabilitation project were received on May 12.

"Typically when we bid out our projects, we end up bidding them out early in the year, and as you get later into the construction season, the contractors, they fill up their schedule with work and so they have less and less availability," he said. "Because there's less and less availability, there are sometimes contractors (that) decide not to bid on a project. Or if they do bid on a project, they have to take into consideration overtime because maybe they're taking on more work than they would otherwise be able to handle. ... So that can end up increasing your bid prices."

Kuharenko said the hope is that bids for the concrete panel replacement portion of the rehabilitation project will come in lower, since it's being bid in the fall.

"We're hoping that schedules are still pretty open and contractors are just trying to look for work for '24," he said.