Council approves $65,000 Phase I engineering contract to rework Red Gate Road railings after bids far exceed budget

Public Works staff detailed why the Red Gate Road railings project—an aesthetic rehabilitation that inspectors say is not a safety issue—came in well over the original $978,000 budget when bids were opened in May. The base bid to remove, sandblast, hot‑dip galvanize and reinstall the existing railings arrived at $1,290,000; an alternate to replace them with custom new railings came at $1,990,000.

“When we opened bids on May 1, we only had one contractor bid the project,” public-works presenter Chris Gottlieb said. He recommended the city hire Benesch Engineering—already under contract for annual bridge inspections—to perform Phase I design and evaluation work (estimated three months) to reassess scope, traffic-control plans, galvanizing options and timeline and then produce Phase II plans for rebidding. Gottlieb said Phase I would cost roughly $65,000 and that staff would use construction-engineering funds originally budgeted for the project to pay the work, then rebudget construction next year.

Council members pressed whether the extra design time was worth the delay and whether a standard IDOT-approved railing might reduce costs compared with a custom rail. Staff argued that rebidding in the March prime-bid window and revising scope to attract more contractors should produce better pricing and a smoother construction season. The committee voted to award the Phase I engineering contract with options to extend to Phase II and Phase III.