Staff recommends the City Council reject the only bid received for WO 22-02 Missing Sidewalk/Miscellaneous Project.

The Missing Sidewalk/Miscellaneous project is intended to concentrate on installing sidewalk in areas that are missing pedestrian facilities.  As a priority, City staff identified areas that are along arterial streets, collector streets, school routes, or in high pedestrian areas for inclusion in this program.  The streets identified as needing sidewalk are Virginia Lane from Rimrock Road to Poly Drive and Alkali Creek Road from Moon Beam Lane to North Moon Beam Lane.  Along with the missing sidewalk, there is miscellaneous concrete work to address problems throughout the City, including ADA improvements, that are too large for the sidewalk tripper repair or replacement projects.   

The project was advertised on February 18, February 25, and March 4, 2022, in the Yellowstone County News and on the City's website.  Bids were opened on March 8, 2022, and one bid was received.  Riverside Contracting, Inc. submitted the lowest, responsible bid.  The bids were significantly higher than the engineer's estimate, and would result in excessively large property owner assessments, so staff is recommending that bid be rejected.  Staff believes bidding the project in a more favorable bid environment will result in lower bids.  In this case, a more favorable bid environment is one where contractors have the capacity to do the work.  Staff intends to re-bid the project in winter 2022/2023.

City Council may:

• Reject all bids.  This will allow Engineering to re-evaluate the project, possibly split the project, and bid at a more favorable time.  

The following bid was received:

Contractor	Bid Amount
Riverside Contracting, Inc.	$1,062,067.60

The project was budgeted in FY22 using Gas Tax and Assessments in the amount of $450,000.00.  The bid was high because of an unfavorable bidding environment, mainly due to area contracting capacity.