Council trims Main Street resurfacing scope to meet budget, plans to bid base project with options

Staff presented line-item estimates for the Main Street resurfacing and related side-street work, treating each component as a separable project for bidding. The presenter said each estimate included mobilization, traffic control and engineering and noted that combining items into a single contract would reduce some duplicate costs. "So they each have mobilization, they each have traffic control," the presenter explained in opening remarks.

The presenter cited a total project estimate of "It's 9,269,000." Councilors debated which items to remove to bring the project within available funds and discussed funding sources: about $4,000,000 from the business district by May 1, about $1,800,000 in the road-project account, and potentially $400,000 from a reimbursable ITEP/cures grant, with the possibility of using $1,000,000 from reserves if necessary. One council member summarized the adjustment strategy: split the bid to include the prioritized items as the base bid and list omitted elements as bid alternates so the council could decide after bid results. "So what we will bid will be everything that you left in," the presenter said when describing the plan to submit a base bid and optional alternates.

Councilors identified Walnuts, North Fair and East Street as high-priority sections to keep; they proposed removing Van-to-Route 50 and at least one decorative island as the largest single savings. After tallying removed items and available funds, staff estimated a plausible base-bid target of about $6.2 million and committed to returning with formal bid documents. Members discussed the need to repay any reserves used out of future business-district receipts.