Duluth Avenue intersection project delayed to 2019 due to high bids

Prior Lake American

A Prior Lake road project originally scheduled to be completed this fall has been rescheduled for 2019 after bids for the project came in too high.

The Duluth Avenue intersection improvement project will consist of widening the intersection of Duluth Avenue and Highway 13 to include dedicated left, thru, and right turn lanes in both directions. A median on Duluth Avenue and a mini-roundabout at Duluth Avenue and Village Lake Drive would also be constructed.

The Prior Lake City Council approved final plans for construction on July 16 and authorized advertisement to receive bids for the work, which an engineer estimated to cost $1.7 million.

The city of Prior Lake received two bids in August from Eureka Construction Inc. for $2.5 million and from Ryan Contracting Company for $2.4 million — the low bid was nearly $734,000 more than the estimate.

“There was little interest in this project due to the amount of work most contractors already have for 2018 and they simply do not have the capacity to take on additional projects,” according to the council memo. “We also spoke with several other contractors who did not bid and they stated they already have more than enough work for 2018.”

The city council approved a resolution to reject those bids during a meeting on Monday. The work would be put out to bid again in late 2018 or early 2019 for work to begin in the spring.

“There’s just a lot of projects right now,” Public Works Director and City Engineer Jason Wedel said. “We got an inkling of this when we first advertised the bid.”

The original completion date for the project was fall 2018 in order to have the intersection done by the time the County Road 21 and Highway 13 project began and before the Minnesota Department of Transportation started its mill and overlay work on Highway 13 in 2019.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation is expected to reach that segment of Highway 13 by late June or early July 2019. The Duluth Avenue intersection improvement project would start in mid-April to have a substantial part of construction done before that segment would be closed, according to the council memo.

The city is receiving $710,000 in funding from the Minnesota Department of Transportation for the project. Wedel said this funding would not be affected by delaying the project. Other funding for the project includes more than $163,000 from special assessment, nearly $907,000 from a tax levy and $400,00 from state aid for a total of nearly $2.2 million.

The council had approved a communications contract for $22,000 to communicate with business owners adjacent to the project about the work that would be done. So far, 25 percent of that budget has been spent whereas the remaining would be used next spring when the project starts again, Wedel said.

A feasibility report was originally done on the intersection improvements in January 2015 and the council ordered the project in the same month but due to projected tax levy impacts, the project was delayed.

In 2017, the council approved a resolution to move the project to 2019 in coordination with the Minnesota Department of Transportation project on Highway 13.

With additional state funding, the feasibility report was updated in 2018 and included the assessments to properties that would benefit from proposed improvements, according to the council memo. The council ordered preparation of plans and specifications for the updated project in March.

There is also the possibility that bids for the project could be combined with the other projects going on at the same time by one contractor, as the projects are located near each other, Wedel said.

“We are looking at ways to make that process go as smoothly as possible next year,” Wedel said. “We’re continuing to have conversations with the state and the county on our joint projects to make that happen as much as we can.”