The Bainbridge Island City Council approved a $2.1 million contract this week to Nordland Construction Northwest of Port Townsend for the construction of a nearly mile-long segment of the Sound to Olympics Trail.
The .8-mile segment of the trail will run alongside the east side of Highway 305 from Winslow Way to High School Road, and represents Phase 2 and Phase 4 of the trail.
City officials said construction of the paved, shared-use trail is expected to start in the spring and wrap up by the end of the year.
The city’s estimate for the work was $2.4 million. Nordland Construction had the low bid, and six other firms also submitted bids, with the highest, at $2.6 million, coming from ACI, Inc.
The extension of the trail to High School Road has a total budget of $2.7 million, with $2.3 million coming from grant funding.
Much of the funding for the next two phases of the project will come from the federal government, through a $1.9 million grant.
It was the city’s second try at finding a builder for the project. An earlier attempt to get bids for the project last summer was restarted after fatal flaws were found in the bidding documents.
While the council voted unanimously Tuesday to award the bid, the council rejected a request by Public Works Director Barry Loveless to increase the project’s budget by another $350,000 to pay for unexpected problems that may arise as well as construction management consultants.
Loveless told the council that without the budget amendment, the city would have just $50,000 left after the Nordland contract for contingencies.
Without the additional $350,000, the city’s options included cancelling the project, or completing just the first section of trail, the segment that will run from downtown to the existing pedestrian bridge at Vineyard Lane.
Loveless said the cost of construction management consultants, a requirement from the Washington State Department of Transportation, had earlier been pegged at $188,000, but subsequent negotiations had lowered those costs.
Still, additional funding was needed, he said, to provide “a little bit of flexibility during construction to cover contingencies without having to come back to council.”
“I certainly hope we’re not going to spend that $350,000 and we won’t spend it unless we absolutely have to,” Loveless said.
The idea of canceling the trail project found no support from the council.
“I think we’ve got to get the trail completed to High School Road, one way or the other,” said Councilman Wayne Roth.
The addition of $350,000 to the project’s budget, however, was a tougher sell.
“It does feel like a huge amount of flexibility,” noted Councilman Roger Townsend.
While that number may represent only a percentage of the overall budget for the project, it was still sizable, he said.
“It’s still $350,000. It’s still a big chunk of our budget,” Townsend said.
And Councilman Ron Peltier said he was struggling to understand how the budget they set for projects could rise because of change orders and additional costs.
He recalled getting grief over the Wing Point Way project, after his wife read a story in the Bainbridge Review about the road reconstruction project going over budget.
“I got raked over the coals for voting to approve additional funds, and I hardly remember doing it,” he said.
Loveless admitted significant changes were made to the Wing Point Way project, and that was one reason why the council was being alerted and more funding was being sought now, before the start of construction.
“It’s pretty tight; you have to expect some cost growth possibly,” he said of the project’s budget.
Once a construction bid has been accepted and work starts, Loveless explained, the city is pretty much committed to the project.
“It’s hard to cancel a job halfway through, just because you don’t want to fund legitimate change orders.”
Phase 2 of the project includes the building of an asphalt trail from Winslow Way along Highway 305 up to the pedestrian bridge at Vineyard Lane, with Phase 4 picking up on the north side of the bridge and continuing north to High School Road.
Phase 3 of the project would see a bridge for bicyclists and walkers built across Highway 305 south of High School Road. That phase is expected to cost $2.9 million.
