Thompson Road repair plan stalled by higher-than-expected cost

At an Oct. 11, 2022 meeting, Granby’s board of trustees voted to allocate up to $500,000 each from the town and Grand Elk Standard Improvement District resources to fix Thompson Road, a avenue that connects the Metropolis Industry searching center and Grand Elk community to U.S. Freeway 40.

SGM, an engineering firm, experienced believed the fix would price tag $1.5 million in 2021, and the city envisioned Dillon Cos., a subsidiary of Kroger, which owns City Industry, would set $500,000 to repairs as well. 

On Jan. 10, city supervisor Ted Cherry told the trustees that the city only gained a single bid for the restore undertaking soon after placing out a ask for for proposals and that the bid arrived in just less than $2 million — $580,910 additional than the engineers’ estimation.

United Cos. submitted the 1 bid, and Cherry claimed the firm identified mobilizations expenditures as the major result in of the higher selling price.

“The rationale for that large difference in estimate compared to bid is essentially they will have to provide crews up listed here to do the function,” Cherry reported. “They’ll have to house them and feed them and all of that stuff over the 60-working day interval of time for the develop out.”

Town workers set with each other three eventualities for the trustees to take into account. The very first would have the city reject United’s bid and rebid the task later in 2023 or 2024, the second would have employees get hold of Kroger about contributing up to $666,000 so the 3 entities could nonetheless split the project cost evenly, and the 3rd would have the town include the added charge and let the standard enhancement district and Kroger fork out the originally agreed $500,000.

Trustees questioned Dan Coakley from SGM if rebidding the task would be possible to raise or lessen the bid, and he stated the charge would probably go up. He also explained he achieved out to more local development organizations that would not have as high mobilization costs but did not find any fascinated corporations.

The board mentioned the significant mobilization prices and possible strategies to lower prices, including United probably bidding on the “halfway pathway” challenge to finish the sidewalk from Kaibab Park to Town Sector and spreading mobilization fees throughout both tasks.

Eventually, trustees decided to go with the second circumstance, instructing staff members to perform with United to lessen fees as a lot as doable and deliver the situation back again at the Jan. 24 meeting and consider to get Kroger to agree to elevated funding so that it, the town and normal advancement district can split the price evenly. Cherry reported Grand County has indicated it would lead around $50,000 to the challenge as perfectly.