Metro Parks closes deal on bikeway extension

Lorain County Metro Parks introduced its final plans of extensions on the Lorain Black River Bikeway Trail, during its board meeting Nov. 16.

The Board of Park Commissioners accepted the best and lowest bid of the contracting company that will construct the new bikeway extension along the Black River Bikeway Trail on state Route 611 and continue it throughout Lorain’s Steel Mill Trail.

The bid for the project was submitted for a unit price of $633,955 by Nerone & Sons Inc. in Cleveland — which recently completed the Mercy Health and Recreation trail.

“Nerone and Sons is a great company to work with,” said Jim Ziemnik, director and secretary of the Lorain County Metro Parks. “They do great work, they’re on time on their budget and just easy to work with.”

K.E. McCartney & Associates Inc., 526 E. Broad St. in Elyria, won a bid to provide construction management services for the extension project at 10 percent of construction costs.

The Ohio Department of Transportation requires to hire separate construction engineering observation companies during projects like this, Ziemnik said.

The Metro Parks received 12 other proposals from engineering companies, but felt most comfortable with K.E McCartney, Ziemnik said.

K.E McCartney has done numerous projects with the Metro Parks and had the best proposal to offer them, adding the firm has much knowledge regarding this type of project, he said.

According to the Metro Parks’ plan, more trails are to come following this new extension and will add onto the new trail which will begin around January.

Ziemnik said the Black River Trail Extension future phases someday will extend north to Lake Erie.

Once the future northern section is installed to Lake Erie, the Black River Trail will be continuous from Lake Erie in Lorain, through Elyria, then connect with the Metro Parks’ North Coast Inland Trail, he said.

The trail will extend into Oberlin and west into Huron County then into and through Norwalk and end at the Maumee River near Toledo.

Along with the Metro Parks’ partners to the west, they will have constructed a trail that will be almost 100 miles in length, Ziemnik said. In other news:

• The garden club at the Sandy Ridge Reservation, 6195 Otten Road in North Ridgeville, will add beekeeping in order to pollinate and keep things in a more natural environment, Ziemnik said.

• Approximately .74 acres of land in Brownhelm Township will be donated by a citizen for an addition of land to the Metro Parks’ Cassell Reservation, located two miles east of Vermilion.

• Cascade Park in Elyria had its end-of-theyear wrap-up after planting of 75 trees in the park Nov. 11. Ziemnik said work to finish the park will begin around April or May with the new playground donated by Elyria Rotary Club for $350,000. The entire project of Cascade is planned to finish in July 2018, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion.