Clintonville streets project back on 2021 calendar
By Bert Lehman
The road construction project in the city of Clintonville involving Shaw Street, Paulina Street, West 13th Street and West 14th Street will begin this year after all.
At the Feb. 25 Streets Committee meeting, City Administrator Sharon Eveland said the project was going to be delayed until 2022 because of numerous obstacles in finalizing the project.
Obtaining easements was proving to be difficult.
Because the project was going to be partially funded by a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), the city was going to request an extension for the construction start date.
In a March 23 memo to the Streets Committee, Eveland said the Department of Administration (DOA), which manages the CDBG program, denied the city’s request for an extension of the start date.
Eveland said the denial of the extension caught the city and the project’s engineers “off guard.”
“We had spoken with our grant rep in February about this and was not given any indication that DOA apparently has a very strict policy on the construction start date,” Eveland said.
Eveland noted in the memo that the city immediately began pushing to complete all the necessary items needed to get the project bid out as quickly as possible.
The bid notice for the project was published on March 30, and bids were expected to be opened on April 14.
Eveland said one parcel owner “has been less than enthused about the city’s request for the easement and this has really slowed the process down.”
City obtains easements
The Streets Committee was given an update by Eveland when it met on April 1.
Eveland said the city received verbal approval in late March for all the needed easements for the project.
The city council was to review and accept the easement agreements at its April 13 meeting.
“If we had not been able to secure those easements, it would have meant we would not have been able to do the storm drain (on West 13th Street),” Eveland said. “And not having the storm drain up there would cause major problems with the drainage and the road would deteriorate significantly faster.”
While the city works through the bid process, Eveland said the USDA RD grant/loan process for the water and wastewater portions of the project are also being worked through.
To ensure the city does not lose the CDBG funds, construction must start by July 1.
“In order to meet that requirement, we simply have to have incurred expenses from the construction contractor,” Eveland said. “To that end, we are going to require the contractor to start on the watermain loop through the park and to leave it up to the contractor whether it can complete any roads this year.
“Our only requirement will be that if they start a road, they will be required to finish it this year as we will not allow any of the roads to be under gravel over the winter. Stiff financial penalties will be incurred if a contractor starts a road but fails to get it paved before winter.”
The city is expected to award this project to a contractor at the May council meeting.