The Crookston Ways and Means Committee had a special meeting on Monday evening to discuss the 2023 Street Improvement projects, and they decided to scrap all the projects except two because the one quote they received was over 40 percent of what they had estimated.
The City only received one bid for the six projects that were estimated to cost $2,061,263, and the bid from RJ Zavoral and Sons Inc. was for $2,796,705. With the difference between the estimate and the quote, City Engineer Rich Clauson and Public Works Director Brandon Carlson suggested the city only go forward with the two projects and package the rest into 2024’s projects.
Public Works Director Brandon Carlson said there were several reasons why they only had one bid on the projects. “Rich reached out to a couple of them that we were expecting to bid, and one didn’t have a crew to put the underground in, and the other one had a hard time fitting it in their schedule,” said Carlson. “Part of the changes we made tonight was to extend the deadline so it will give them a little more time into the fall so we can hopefully get a couple more bids, and we have reduced the project size.”
The Ways and Means committee agreed that they should move forward with rebidding the Alexander Street project from 4th Avenue North to 425 feet north and only replace the watermain on Houston Avenue from Hunter Street to South Ash Street in 2023.
“We were going to do Houston Avenue’s watermain and the street, and we were going to do some gravel roads on the south end of town and upgrade them to curb and blacktop streets, and we dropped those to make the project a little smaller,” said Carlson. “We will have the watermain put in on Houston this year so that the following year the streets can be done, and we will have a larger street improvement project in 2024 to get a more reasonable bid out of the contractors. We are moving forward, doing what we can, and trying to get the best bids we can. I didn’t feel it would be responsible for accepting a bid where they came in and if the projects have to wait until next year.”
The rest of the projects (listed below) will be pushed back to 2024.
Houston Avenue reconstruction (Hunter Street to South Ash Street)
Euclid Avenue Reconstruction (Guthrie Street to McKinley Blvd.)
Guthrie Street Reconstruction (Euclid Avenue to 5th Avenue South)
Guthrie Street Reconstruction (5th Avenue South to the DAC garage approach)
Elm Street Alley between Summit and Central (Alley on West side of Elm Street)
