Catoosa wraps stormwater improvements
Catoosa County officials recently approved a closeout change order that finalizes its stormwater improvement projects that have been going on throughout the community.
County Building and Zoning Director James Davis recently presented the final order to the Board of Commissioners during its most recent meeting Oct. 16.
The board unanimously approved the $1,500 increase in the overall cost of the work.
“The proposal is for final change order and a certificate of substantial completion for our stormwater improvements project,” Davis explained.
Davis says the project addressed several areas of need within the county: two sites within Morris Estates on Morris Drive and Foster Drive, issues on Blue Heron Drive.
Davis also broke down the initial change order on the project, which included significant work along Poplar Springs Road. In July, the addition of the Poplar Springs Road work from Harris Drive to Holcomb Road made the cost of the project jump a little more than $97,000 from $460,076 to $557,696.
“The original contract, plus change order number one, was $557,696 and the final change order adjusts the actual installed amount and time to add $1,553 and 20 days to the contract, therefore the final cost is $559,252.33, and the completion date was Sept. 14, 2018,” Davis explained.
The work was paid for with 2014 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds.
As far as the final uptick in cost goes, Davis says there were some additions to the Poplar Springs Road area of the project.
“What we ran into was an issue on that final section on Poplar Springs Road,” he said. “The Public Works Department requested some additional work be done, and in turn, we had to install an extra junction box and that is the amount of the change order. The work is completed, it’s all done, we have done the walk through on it and everything meets staff approval.”
The reason that portion of Poplar Springs Road was added to the overall plan earlier in the year was due to safety concerns surrounding a limited shoulder and a gas line that had become exposed in a ditch.
Davis says all the concerns were met with the work, and the area is safer for residents and other travelers. “It looks grea. It looks great and it’s working great. It has actually been mowed a couple of times. Everything has turned out great. Even some of the property owners that were complaining during the project, we’ve not heard anything from them, so everybody seems pleased.”