The city of Independence typically receives about six sealed bids for its road construction projects.
For an upcoming project that will extend Jackson Drive from Holke Road to Missouri 78, the city received 13 bids, with less than $800 separating the two lowest bids.
Even better, city staff say, all 13 bids came in lower than the engineer’s estimate for construction, with the lowest bid registering at 30 percent below the $1,442,789.30 estimate.
City Manager Robert Heacock and John Powell, city director of public works, are both attributing the rare number of bids – and their level below original estimates – to one factor: the economic recession.
The Independence City Council Monday night unanimously approved a $1,016,096.05 contract with Pyramid Excavating for the Jackson Drive project. Just $791.30 separated the Pyramid Excavating and Linaweaver Construction bids.
“We have seen the number of bidders increase, and their bid prices are generally lower,” Powell said of the recession’s effect on sealed bids. “Both of those are a reflection of the economy because there are fewer projects for the contractors to get work.”
With a projected completion date in fall 2010, the contract represents the last section of the ongoing Jackson Drive project, which is a major north-south arterial that will serve eastern Independence, Powell said. The four-lane street will include a bicycle path and a sidewalk along the existing Holke Road from Necessary Road to Missouri 78.
The project also will open up land for development and will serve one of two new elementary schools that Independence voters approved in a bond issue earlier this month. The Metropolitan Community College-Blue River campus also is in its vicinity, and the new animal shelter also will be constructed near the extension. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will fund “a significant portion” of the project, Powell said.
Transferred funds remain within Power & Light Dept.
Heacock clarified the transfer of more than $22 million within city funds that the city council approved in an emergency ordinance at its Nov. 2 meeting, including transferring appropriations totaling $4,820,000 in the Power & Light Department’s capital budget.
According to the ordinance, the Power & Light capital budget funds were appropriated within a list of eight projects. Such budget adjustments take place about three times in any given fiscal year, Heacock said, and no funds were transferred into the city’s general fund.
“We have to have business basis in order to have a change from one fund to another,” he said.
