After an unsuccessful first bid opening, Union County has now received some numbers for a roundabout project in Jerome Township.
County commissioners heard bids at the board’s regular meeting last week for the project that would install a roundabout at the intersection of Mitchell-Dewitt Road and Industrial Parkway. The intersection has been identified as a problem intersection having been the site of a number of injury crashes and fatalities and has been at the top of the county’s priority list for a while.
Officials put the project to bid earlier this year and were surprised to receive no response from construction companies.
This time, there were two bids, though only one fell within allowed percentage.
County Engineer Jeff Stauch said he’s surprised to get such a minimal response given the project area and type.
“We even adjusted north of the original estimate quite a bit,” Stauch said. “And we even took a second look with the consultant. To only have one or two bids, for the area it is, I mean, it’s a good job.”
Stauch said the project’s estimated cost is $3,097,000, nearly double the price from a year ago and almost a third of his office’s $9 million budget.
The first bid came from Strawser Paving Company, Inc. out of Columbus at $3,898,485. The second came from Trucco out of Delaware at $3,707,782.
Though no decisions were made, Stauch said only the second bid came in under the acceptable 20% range. He added it was just $9,000 under the limit.
Given the demand for projects, he said, the difficulty likely comes from construction companies being too busy to take on additional projects of this size.
“We talked to a couple of companies, one that built the Cosgray Road roundabout and they built one of our bridges this year,” he said. “They said ‘we got our hands full with other stuff.’”
A major impact on road projects is the Intel plant being built east of Columbus, Stauch said, which draws resources typically available to county engineers.
“Last week, there were 300,000 tons of stone hauled out of our quarries,” he said. “There’s just such a demand.”
Commissioner Steve Robinson said large numbers of trucks were coming out of York Township alone.
“There was like 100 loads a day going from York to Intel,” he said. “There are trucks coming from maybe up to 100 miles away.”
Stauch said he’ll review the bids but didn’t include it in the budget looking ahead.
“We’ll find a way somehow. We’ve got to get it built and there’s really not anything we can do that I can think of in reducing the cost,” he said.
Josh Holtschulte with the engineer’s office said budgeting for these types of projects is difficult because the office’s funding goes toward maintaining existing roads.
“The challenge with that budget is that budget is built around maintaining the roads we have and the catch we’re in with our county and the development is this is a strain on any new capital improvements,” he said. “We take that out of the budget, monies for maintaining what we have, it really strains maintaining what we have.”
Previously, the county looked at a traffic signal instead, which initially would be cheaper, but officials said it would end up costing similar in the long run given the need to widen the roads, add turn lanes and have continuous maintenance.
Stauch added that the traffic signal also wouldn’t be as safe.
“It’s not going to perform as well and we looked at that with our consultant,” he said. “You’d save money on the front end but you sacrifice safety as far conveying traffic, it’s just not as effective.”
Stauch said he would have a recommendation sometime in one to two weeks.