The Mitchell-Dewitt roundabout project finally has a contractor.
After a few setbacks, including an unsuccessful first bid last year, the Union County Commissioners awarded a bidder for the project Wednesday morning. The intersection, at Mitchell-Dewitt Road and Industrial Parkway in Jerome Township, has been the topic of discussion for area officials and residents for several years.
The award went to Trucco Construction, out of Delaware, for a bid amount of $3.7 million, an amount slightly higher than county officials were hoping for.
The bid was one of two that came into the county on Dec. 20 but recommendations for the award were delayed. County officials said they wanted to work with the company to see if they could make the project more feasible.
At the time, the bid by Trucco was the only one that came in under the acceptable 20% range and even that was just $9,000 under the limit.
“We finally got a bid we can accept this time but it’s a little higher than we were expecting,” said Luke Sutton, project engineer with the engineer’s office. “But we can make the numbers work, we’ll just have to cut some other projects.”
The first bid went out last year but received no response as companies were overflowing with work, officials said at the time.
The two bids the county received in December were the $3,707,482 from Trucco and $3,898,485 from Strawser Paving Company.
Officials said they have been dealing with the rising market costs but previously estimated the project at just over $3 million, which is double what it was the year prior.
In 2022, the county looked at either installing a traffic signal at a cost of $800,000 or a roundabout at a cost of $1.5 million. Although a higher cost, engineers determined that a single-lane roundabout made more sense for that intersection.
The roundabout was also determined to be a safer option as it often reduces the speed of drivers approaching the intersections.
Officials said the township wouldn’t be contributing to the project financially, but some funds would be coming from the City of Marysville.
“Some of that (work) is also going to be utility work, so some of this cost will be coordinated with the city and paid for by the city because there are utilities down there that are in the right-of-way that are their responsibility,” said County Administrator Bill Narducci.
Commissioner Dave Burke said he wanted to stress the importance of the ongoing discussions with the Jerome Township Trustees. He said continuing strong cooperative agreements would work to share these financial burdens.
“We have this coming in somewhere around $3.8 million, just for this one roundabout and I just bring that up because this is one road improvement that most people would probably look at and say it looks pretty straightforward, but it’s $3.8 million or $3.7 million of county funds being used for improvement on Industrial Parkway for one intersection in Jerome Township,” he said. “This is one minor project out of many and it’s a lot of money. And it needs done.”
County officials said, as the area grows and more residential development empties onto county roadways, road infrastructure requests have gone up but the board is unable to fund all the projects. Officials said those projects will exceed $40 million in costs.
Although the timeline has not been officially worked out, officials said the project would be done this year.
The next step in the process is to enter into an official contract with Trucco and then start the process of utility re-location at the intersection. Actual construction will likely follow sometime in the spring.