Construction bids continue to climb for city
City council reluctantly agreed to pay $1.15 million more than budgeted for roadwork on Lowell Avenue as bids on city engineering projects continue to come in higher than expected.
But councillors first considered a motion by St. Andrew’s Coun. Matt Harris not to award the tender.
Harris said they have a history of bids coming in over budget and argued they should direct staff to contact participating construction companies and tell them the city can’t award the project as it exceeds the budget amount.
“I would hope that if this continues on, we send a clear message to everybody that’s bidding that perhaps people need to sharpen their pencils,” Harris said.
But councillors were told the reconstruction of the central St. Catharines street is necessary and bids likely won’t be any lower if they put it off.
St. Patrick’s Coun. Mark Elliott said the people living on Lowell Avenue have been waiting for the reconstruction of the street for some time. He said there are issues with the road sinking and there’s large pooling and puddling that freezes over in the wintertime, creating sheets of ice.
“It’s been quite a long wait for this project to get started and get going,” Elliott said.
Fellow ward Coun. Mat Siscoe also said residents have been waiting for the reconstruction to take place and are on board with the redesign of the street.
“While I am as frustrated as anybody with the cost escalation we’ve seen this year, the fact remains that this project needs to move forward,” Siscoe said.
Still, councillors had questions about how the price could be so high.
“How can a bid come in at $1.152 million more?” asked St. George’s Coun. Sal Sorrento incredulously.
Dan Dillon, director of transportation and environmental services, said the Lowell Avenue project was included as part of the 2015 budget process and amounts would have been determined in 2014.
Since then, pricing for underground works has increased 30 to 40 per cent in municipalities throughout the province. A good portion of the Lowell Avenue project is underground work and there are also challenges with soil and the fact it’s a narrow street.
“The fact of the matter is there’s quite a lot of work out there right now for a lot of underground contractors, so that is part of the challenge we’re facing,” Dillon said.
As well, the project has gone through a lengthy environmental assessment process and additional works were identified as required. There were also some materials that had to be disposed of from the site that Dillon said the city couldn’t have anticipated when the project started.
Dillon said he didn’t think there will ever be a time when the city gets better pricing.
“There’s a lot of infrastructure money that’s out there right now for all of the municipalities and there’s also a lot of work out there in the private sector as well. It’s the same contractors doing that work. It’s not our belief that re-tending this at a later date will result in a better pricing.”
Dillon said the city is making a few changes to its tendering process to deal with the situation.
Because of the sheer number of construction projects in competition for tenders, the city is making start dates for projects more flexible for contractors. Dillon said the city has done it for the past few tenders and it’s resulted in more bids.
As well, rather than budgeting the full amount for a project up front in a budget year, the city is going to go through the design process, get to a tender-ready stage and then do a re-evaulation of pricing and costing.
Vote to not award the tender — defeated
Yes: Harris, Haywood, Sorrento, Britton, Garcia
No: Kushner, Phillips, Siscoe, Stevens, Williamson, Bellows, Elliott, Sendzik
Vote to award tender
Yes: Elliott, Garcia, Haywood, Kushner, Bellows, Phillips, Siscoe, Stevens, Wiliamson, Sendzik
No: Harris, Britton, Sorrento
Finally, Dillon said, his department is re-evaluating projects that have yet to be tendered as well as those that are being proposed for the 2018 program budget. The Lowell Avenue project is a carryover from the way it used to budget for projects.
Councillors defeated Harris’s motion and awarded a tender for the reconstruction of Lowell to the lowest bidder, Peters Excavating Inc., in the amount of $2.8 million plus HST. Staff estimated that the total cost all in will be $3.16 million.
Just more than $2 million was allocated to the project in 2015. Council approved using the additional $1.15 million from various existing budgets.
The start date for the Lowell Avenue project is early in the new year and will see reconstruction between Thomas and Lake streets.