Baxter Aldermen have awarded an estimated $1 million bid to relocate utility lines along Ditty Road for T-DOT’s Portobello Industrial Access Project.
T-DOT would not bid out the Portobello Industrial Access Project until the lines were relocated. Consulting Engineer Tom Bennett said he would not advise rebidding the project to relocate the utility lines, as he believes rebidding would not produce a different price.
“It’s a hard project,” Bennett said. “Nobody wants to do it. It’s, you know, you got to get the milling up and redo these utilities and so on, and it’s just there’s a lot to it. It’s 800 feet of water main, and it’s 600 feet of gravity sewer.”
Bennett said T-DOT would help pay for the relocation of the utilities as long as the city submitted a pre-bid estimate. Bennett said the sewer component of the project came in an estimated $200,00 under budget, while the water component was an estimated $400,000 over budget. Bennett said he is not sure yet if T-DOT would cover the overage.
“T-DOT’s response is you need simply amend the contract,” Bennett said. “As of tonight, that has not been completed yet because we just opened bids. So that’s where we are, and so your award, if you choose to award the project to John T. Hall, is in advance of the execution of that T-DOT amendment that they have asked for. So we are in communication with them, but that has not been completed yet.”
Bennett said it would take him about a week to get T-DOT included, and then hope that the contract is amended to cover the overages. Bennett said he recommends the city get the project started fairly quickly.
“That project on the T-DOT side, that road contract, that’s tomorrow,” Bennett said. “So, and that project has a completion date of November of next year, I was told, so it’s going to be moving very quickly. And our work is in advance of that road work, so, you know, I guess I want to say it needs to move forward the best you can.”
Baxter Mayor Danny Holmes said John T. Hall Construction was the only bid for the project.
