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City accepts $11.8 million bid on Tower Road bridge
Published 11:07am Tuesday, August 16, 2011The Fergus Falls City Council moved forward on the Tower Road bridge project Monday, as it approved the project’s contractor bid.
The first bid was an $11.8 million award to Wisconsin-based Lunda Construction for the general construction work on the bridge. The city (which will be sharing the cost of the project with Otter Tail County, as well as large supplements of federal and state dollars) has had Lunda’s bid for a few weeks, but it had to wait for approval until the state Department of Transportation (MnDOT) made sure it met state equal opportunity requirements. Now that MnDOT has approved, the city can approve the bid and Lunda can get to work.
“The county board is expected to take action (on the bid) tomorrow,” City Engineer Dan Edwards said.
The bid is slightly more than was anticipated, probably because of increased concrete prices, but Edwards said it fits well inside the project’s contingency budget.
Now that the bid is approved, Edwards will meet with Lunda to discuss construction schedules.
“Right now the general schedule is that end of August in 2012 the bridgework is to be done,” Edwards said. A month to six weeks later, the remaining roadwork will be complete, with final project wrap-up (including replacing turf and other cosmetic matters) finishing by spring 2013.
“I’ll have a better idea later about what kind of start we can expect this fall,” he added.
Getting to this point in the process has been a struggle for the city, as the project was delayed for months by railroad agreements and threatened again by the possibility of a longer state government shutdown.
“Thank you Mr. Edwards for a long and tedious journey getting to this point,” said Mayor Hal Leland. “We greatly appreciate it.”
The city also approved bids for the first phase of its new landfill site development and for the extension of water lines and sanitary sewers to the Regional Treatment Center buildings purchased by Campus Development Group.
Tags: city council, roads, Tower Road bridge project
