Redmond seeks $435,515 consultant contract for Willows Road water main extension; total project budget $2.1M

Public works staff asked the committee to place a consultant agreement with CONSOR on the June 17 consent agenda to design a roughly 1,300-foot water main extension on Willows Road, with a consultant fee of $435,515 and a total project budget of about $2.1 million.

"The project consists of about 1,300 feet of new water main," said Lisa Rigg, senior engineer. Rigg said the project fills a gap between an existing line built by the Proctor's Willows development and the southern system, improves redundancy and provides water service to several currently unserved properties. She said the project will require about a quarter-mile of lane resurfacing and restriping and will cross three culverts, though culvert work is not included in the project scope at this time.

Christopher Stenger, Deputy Director, Public Works, Utilities and Environmental Programs, said the consultant contract amount is $435,515 and that the city expects a total budget of $2,100,000 for the project. Council asked about developer fees-in-lieu collected from the original development and whether those funds were held for sidewalk and culvert work. Stenger and Rigg said a voluntary fee-in-lieu was collected for sidewalk and culvert frontage improvements but that permitting and the complexity of fish-bearing culverts made including culvert replacement in the water main project impractical. They said the sidewalk and culvert work was removed from this scope and that the voluntary funds will be retained until they can be used on a later project.

Council members pressed for assurance that the water main work would not be followed soon after by culvert replacement that would require re-digging recently completed work. Rigg said culvert replacement would be a larger multi-year permitting project and "certainly wouldn't be next year." Staff said two of the three culverts in the area are fish-bearing, which drives a longer permitting timeline.

Council member Field asked whether staff had considered alternatives to the reduced scope chosen to meet the interlocal agreement schedule with Kirkland; staff replied the timeline to satisfy the Kirkland ILA made the narrower scope the viable option. No formal vote was taken in committee; council expressed no objections to placing the consultant agreement on the June 17 consent agenda.