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Oakmont staff recommend $300,000 spot-repair bid and grant application to shore up Allegheny River Boulevard
Summary
Oakmont borough staff proposed a spot-repair contract and a grant application to fix the worst brick sections of Allegheny River Boulevard, prioritizing a deep-excavation approach to avoid repeated failures. Council discussed budgets, bidding timing and contingencies for unknown subsurface issues.
Staff and engineers presented a two-part approach for Allegheny River Boulevard on July 7: a near-term, prioritized spot-repair bid and a parallel grant application to fund a larger section of repairs. The staff-recommended base bid was described as around $300,000 with $75,000 alternates, and would use full excavation to the subbase where necessary rather than surface-only patching.
Sean (engineer) said the goal is to repair the specific failed sections between Washington and Pennsylvania by removing affected brick, inspecting and repairing the concrete subbase and rebuilding to provide a more durable result. “We want to fix these from the bottom up so we don't keep repeating surface-only repairs that failed in the past,” Sean said, summarizing the technical rationale for full excavation and rebuild on the worst blocks.
Council members pressed staff on three practical risks: (1) unknown subsurface conditions (for example the so-called “dip”), which could increase costs once crews open the pavement; (2) how change orders would be handled if an individual location required far more work than estimated; and (3) contractor interest in this specialized work. Staff said the bid will be structured as a square-yard price with a priority list and alternates so the borough can direct the contractor to proceed in order of priority and stop when funds are exhausted. For larger, unexpected anomalies the staff said any major change order would come to council for approval.
On funding, staff told council the borough has already identified roughly $200,000 in 2026 funds and moved about $100,000 of capital to support an initial effort; they also proposed applying for multimodal/competitive grants to fund a more extensive follow-up phase. Staff recommended advertising the spot-repair procurement between the July work session and the regular August meeting and targeting September–October for mobilization if bids and weather permit.
Council members debated scope and materials. Some favored preserving brick where feasible for historic and aesthetic reasons in the core commercial blocks; others suggested planning for concrete or paved alternatives at specific intersections where cost or durability made brick impractical. Staff recommended specifying the exact section in the bid (a gap-filling approach adjacent to recently repaired blocks) and said agencies that administer grants typically allow some flexibility about surface materials if the project narrative justified it.
Next steps: staff will finalize bid specifications, identify the priority list of segments, advertise the procurement and return to council with a resolution to authorize advertisement and a grant-resolution draft in time for the August meeting. Council asked staff to include clear change-order controls and to estimate a maximum single-location contingency to avoid a run-away cost at a single problem site.
The presentation and most of the technical discussion took place during the work session; no formal contract award or vote was taken at this meeting. Council signaled general support for staff to proceed to advertise the bid and to prepare the grant application for the next meeting.
