Paving for Progress: More Cedar Rapids street work than contractors to fight for it

CEDAR RAPIDS — Bidding on city street projects takes more than a working pickup, a credit card from a home-improvement store and some success laying concrete in the sidewalk outside your house.

For now.

This week, Cedar Rapids City Council had the rare experience of setting aside two street construction projects because no contractor bid on them.

At the same time, two other larger street projects attracted bids 31 percent higher and 14 percent higher than the city's pre-bid cost estimate.

In the first, only one company bid. In the second, just two.

City Council member Ralph Russell, a civil engineer and retired former head of engineering company HR Green Co., said Thursday that the lack of bidders and the high bid prices are coming as the city is rolling out its Paving for Progress program, which will repair and replace streets in the next 10 years with an estimated $180 million in revenue from the city's fix-the-streets, local-option sales tax.

'The current contractors who typically bid our work are all busy,' Russell said. 'When contractors are busy, the first thing you see is fewer bidders, and the second is the price goes up and the third thing, you probably see new people coming into the market.'

Russell, a member of the council's Infrastructure Committee, told his council colleagues earlier this week that this is not a 'normal bidding climate.'

'We're paying a premium,' he added.

Russell said the council committee plans to work the city's engineering staff to develop a strategy to try to keep the street projects moving ahead at a reasonable price.

For example, he said the city might build more flexibility on the start and completion times for projects as a way to entice more companies to bid with better prices.

'We're all interested in getting the jobs out on the street and get the work done because the residents approved the sales tax, and now they want to see some action. And we want to see some action as well,' Russell said.

Rob Davis, the city's engineering operations manager, told the City Council this week that the city prefers to go out for bids on some street projects in the winter and early spring when contractors are working to fill their construction season schedules.

The city is now taking bids in what is the second half of the season, and he said busy contractors don't want to add more workers at this time of the year, he said.

On Thursday, Davis said the pressure on bids for the Paving for Progress program and for other street projects funded differently and happening in the city at the same time would ease in future years as the city huddles with contractors once the construction season ends this year and informs them of the amount of work expected in the years ahead.

Davis said, too, that street contractors from outside the metro area that don't normally bid on many Cedar Rapids projects now are expressing an interest to take on city work, which could add to competitive bids and prices.

One of those, Iowa Erosion Control. of Victor is seeking to bid on three Cedar Rapids Paving for Progress projects early in July. The three are concrete street projects, which is an Iowa Erosion Control specialty, on Glass Road NE, Diagonal Drive SW and Wiley Boulevard SW, Randy Miller, the company's vice president, said on Thursday.

Miller said Iowa Erosion Control used to do some work for the city of Cedar Rapids some years ago. But he added the city began to break projects into smaller pieces, which didn't fit the company's business strategy.

'So we moved on to greener pastures,' he said.

In recent years, Iowa Erosion Control did do a one-milelong concrete reconstruction project on Sixth Street SW south of Highway 30, and Miller said the company is giving Cedar Rapids a new look now.

'The seat-of-the-pants feel is that the Cedar Rapids market is going to provide some opportunities in the coming years,' he said. 'Obviously, the simple fact that there's some special funding creates dollar volumes that are out there, and some of this work meets our business model requirements. We're big fans of trying to keep these old concrete roadways concrete as long as we can.'

Asphalt firm LL Pelling Co. of North Liberty was the lone bidder this week on the city's Paving for Progress project on portions of 19th Street SE, Bever Avenue SE and Garden Drive SE. The company's bid of $1.874 million was 31 percent higher than the engineer's estimate of $1.428 million.

Chuck Finnegan, the company's president, on Thursday said the small piece of the project on Garden Drive SE added unexpected costs unrelated to the project's paving, and he said he has recommended changes to the city's engineers.

At the same time, Finnegan said one idea for the city's current conundrum — a lot of work and overly busy contractors — is to extend new projects coming up for bid into next year, an idea that the city's Davis said is a good one.

Finnegan said Pelling can handle Cedar Rapids work, but it has been having trouble finding subcontractors to do concrete and other work needed on Pelling's asphalt projects, he said.

For some years, Pelling often has been the only bidder on larger asphalt street projects in Cedar Rapids, though Cedar Rapids city officials have said that their ability to choose between concrete and asphalt on many projects keeps Pelling bids competitive.

Iowa Erosion Control's Miller said his company has done some asphalt work in the past, but no longer does, in part, because of Pelling's dominance. Pelling owns the local asphalt plant, and constructing a competing asphalt plant is difficult to do because of the materials being handled and the permits needed to do so, Miller said.

He said there are plenty of concrete plants, but not asphalt plants.

The two Cedar Rapids projects that failed to attract a bidder this week were an intersection improvement project at 42nd Street NE and Intersection 380, with a cost estimate of $423,000, and a curb repair project, with a cost estimate of $330,000.