Fifth Street reconstruction delayed in Coralville

CORALVILLE — Coralville’s Fifth Street reconstruction project — which was expected to begin this month — will be delayed a year after bids came in over budget.

The Coralville City Council this week followed the recommendation from city staff and rejected all bids, and the city will try again with perhaps a simpler project.

The Iowa Department of Transportation last month received three bids for the project, which the city estimated will cost $5.2 million. The lowest bid came in at just under $7 million — about a third over budget.

City Engineer Scott Larson recommended the council reject all bids after reviewing line-item unit prices and discussing options with Shive-Hattery, the city’s engineering consultant. Some unit prices were more than double what is typically seen and were too high on too many items, Larson said during Tuesday’s council meeting.

“We are reviewing options to simplify construction with the intent of rebidding the project through IDOT this fall,” Larson said in a memo. Larson said that if all goes according to plan, the project could be rebid as early as September.

Larson said some elements of the project could be taken out of the Iowa DOT bid and done as a city project, primarily water main work. The goal would be to simplify the project and condense the time frame to “make it more appealing” when rebid, he added.

The first of five project phases was anticipated to begin this month with a complete road closure of Fifth Street. The project starts at 12th Avenue and goes through the 20th Avenue intersection.

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Work includes tearing out the pavement and replacing the sidewalks, as well as new water main and storm sewer. New trees, lighting and landscaping also will be added.

The goal was to be done with substantial traffic impacts by the end of 2024, with work in 2025 including landscaping and other final touch-ups.

Larson said it’s possible the project could be condensed to four phases and be done in two construction seasons, but the city will have to redevelop the schedule.

Fifth Street is home to the Coralville Public Library, City Hall, S.T. Morrison Park, as well as a variety of businesses, apartment buildings and other city buildings. It also hosts the city’s Fifth Street Social.

The street, which was first paved in 1921, is a vital and historic part of the community, as well as one of the city’s busier pedestrian areas, city officials previously said.

Fifth Street “is the civic center of our community with all of those community gathering spaces, the park, the library, the walkability,” Mayor Meghann Foster told The Gazette last year. “It’s really exciting to be thinking about how we want it to look for the next 100 years.”

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