For the second year in a row, the District of Houston has shelved the planned addition of a righthand turn lane from Copeland onto Hwy16 and the replacement of aging watermains underneath the road surface.
Last year Terus Construction was to do the work but backed away when it said it could not start the project and complete it before colder weather arrived.
This year the District asked Terus again as well as a second contractor, Western Industrial Contractors, for their availability with only the latter saying it could do the work.
With a year now past since a contract price of $215,000 was set with Terus, a new price with Western Industrial was established at $313,000 for a total project cost of $398,750. That’s compared to last year’s total project cost of $317,900. The additional money was allocated from the District’s accumulated surplus.
But Western Industrial has also now said it is unable to carry through.
“A project kick-off meeting staff and the contractor occurred June 29, 2022. At this time, the contractor expressed concerns about their capacity to complete the work in 2022,” wrote District chief administrative officer Michael Dewar in an explanatory memo to council.
“It was confirmed on July 18, 2022 that the contractor could not complete the work because they did not have necessary management infrastructure, manpower or equipment.”
Council has now agreed to carry over the project and its $400,000 for retendering next year.
The Copeland project will improve traffic access to Hwy16 and better accommodate the increased traffic coming from Tim Hortons and the new Esso service station enterprise, District officials indicated in moving the project forward.
Originally, just the right hand turn lane was to be built but council then accepted a recommendation to replace underground civic works now approaching 60 years old.
This is the second time this year council has been stalled when it comes to a major project planned in the downtown core.
Just one company, Terus Construction, responded to a request for proposals in February for an extensive rebuild of 10th St. and even then said it would not be in a position to do the work until next year.
That’s not only left the $2.1 million project to rejuvenate 10th St. in limbo for this year but could cause problems for the District because a federal grant it received to finance about one-third of the work — $656,250 — has to be spent by March 31 of next year.
Council is now going to put 10th St. out for tender again and is contacting the federal agency that provided the grant to see if it can be spent after March 31 of next year.
District chief administrative officer Michael Dewar said while both projects will be put out tender again at the same time, they remain separate.
The intent is to present two projects in hopes they will be more attractive to potential bidders because of costs that could be shared or combined.
The 10th St. plan builds off of the 9th St. modernization of below ground and above ground improvements, a project that was begun in 2020 and completed last year.
Replacing water and sewer lines underneath the ground, storm sewer upgrades, reconstructing the road surface, replacing sidewalks and adding landscaping on 10th from Poulton to Butler essentially replicates what was done to 9th.