Board rejects set of bids

Enclave Boulevard lawn restoration to be done by township if developer does not complete project

MONTGOMERY TWP. » Township officials will have to try again to get bids for work that needs to be done around Enclave Boulevard.

Township supervisors voted unanimously Monday night to reject a set of bids for lawn replacement and landscaping work that developer David Cutler is required to complete.

“They have to do it. It’s not that I have to ask them to do it, they have to do it. We were going to do this in the event that they failed to do it, and it would’ve been charged against their escrow accounts,” said township Manager

Larry Gregan.

Cutler and the township have gone back-and-forth at length over the past decade on various aspects of four developments — Montgomery Walk, Montgomery Knoll, Montgomery Pointe and Montgomery Preserve — all located off of Route 309 and surrounding Enclave Boulevard, the road that runs through the property.

Last year the township issued a notice to cure directing Cutler to finish public improvements throughout that development, including road and sidewalk repairs, and Gregan said the bids the board rejected Monday would have addressed extras outside the

road and sidewalks themselves.

“It was mostly restoration of some lawn area that was disturbed during construction along Enclave Boulevard, and adjacent in the right-of-way, where it was dug up, and where they put in underground wiring for the streetlights,” Gregan said.

“If they did not move forward and complete that work, we were looking to get bids to perform that work, and unfortunately it came in a lot higher than we were prepared to spend,” he said.

Early estimates by township engineering consultants had priced the work at roughly $42,000 for the base bid and $22,000 for an alternate bid including additional concrete work. Gregan told the board Monday night that the bids produced

prices that came in more than twice as high: two bids of $107,720 and $108,850 for the base contract, with alternate bids of $31,980 and $31,440 respectively.

“That would have come out of the escrow funds that they had posted, but given the fact that it was so significantly higher, we decided to reevaluate the work to be done,” said Gregan.

Contractors are currently working on sidewalks in the Montgomery Knoll development, and have told the township they expect to complete final punch list items for that work by the end of next week, according to the manager. That work, and the work for the lawn restoration, would be covered by funds the developer has already posted, if the township has to complete the work and the developer chooses not to do so.

“We have varying letters of credit and performance bonds available on each of these jobs. Some of them have a combination of letters of credit and cash in township escrows,” Gregan said.

“If we had awarded the contract, we would have been doing it. We fully expect the developer will, and we have promised the neighbors out there that we would try and take some action if the devel- oper failed to, and that’s why we went out to bid for it,” he said.

On work of this type, the developer would likely be able to secure a lower price than the township could, because the township is required to follow prevailing wage laws when seeking bids for such projects, according to the manager.

“That generally adds some cost to the price of the project, but I think this one was kind of a surprise,” he said.

“Plus, it’s the middle of the construction season, and sometimes the prices are a little bit higher when you’re asking somebody to work something in, in the middle of their construction season,” said Gregan.

Supervisor Michael Fox asked if Gregan, staff, and the township’s engineering consultant can review the bid specifications to see if any work can be changed to increase the likelihood of lower bids, and Gregan said they’ve already started discussing how to do so.

“If we’re going to bid the exact same thing, chances are we’re going to get the same result,” Fox said. “What’s the saying: ‘Insanity is going the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.”

Montgomery Township’s supervisors next meet at 8 p.m. on July 23 at the township administration building, 1001 Stump Road. For more information nor meeting agendas and materials visit www. MontgomeryTwp.org or follow @MontTwp on Twitter.