Waseca County receives bids for multiple road projects

In the past month, Waseca County had opened up bids for multiple projects that will take place throughout 2024.

Public Works Director Jim Kollar presented the bids for the projects to the county board at their Feb. 20 meeting. Kollar and the Public Works staff recommended that the board award contracts to bidders of two of the three projects, and recommended that the board reject the bids for the third project and execute a work order for MnDOT to do the work instead.

Bituminous seal coat

On Jan. 26, Waseca County opened up bids for the 2024 bituminous seal coat program, which will apply seal coat, fog seal and pavement markings to 20 miles of county road. This includes CSAH 15, CSAH 35, paved segments of county roads 53 and 63, and the county roads within Waldorf (3, 4 and 74).

In addition to the county roads, the city of Waldorf requested that its newly reconstructed city streets would be included in the bid package.

This gives the city an opportunity to determine if they would want their streets to be included in the bid with the county and see if it would be cheaper for them to have it be a combined contract. Four companies put in bids for the base of just the county work, the alternate of just the city work, and the combination of the county and city work.

The engineer's estimate for the base bid was $573,873.30 and the estimate for the alternate was $56,363, while the estimate for the combination of the two was $630,236.30.

Scott Construction had the lowest bid for the county road work and the county and city work combined, but did not have the lowest bid for the city street work, as their bid was significantly over the engineer's estimate.

At its Feb. 12 City Council meeting, Waldorf considered the bid amount, but ultimately elected to opt out of the County's contract. They are set to look at other options for the seal coat, fog seal, and pavement markings of their newly reconstructed city streets.

Because the city opted out of the contract with the county, Kollar requested that the council award the contract to Scott Construction Inc. for the amount of $512,427.64, which is 10.71% under the engineer's estimate.

Commissioner Doug Christopherson, who represents the city of Waldorf, wondered if it was possible if the county could contribute to Waldorf's cost of the project if they were to accept the base bid and the alternate from Scott Construction. The offer is still 6.16% under the engineer's estimate.

"They're a smaller community trying to get these things done," Christopherson said about Waldorf to Kollar. "Even if we were to take some of that toward the county, we'd still be well below your engineer's estimate and they'd be able to get their job done."

Kollar noted that the option would be generous on the county's part and said that they could see if any of the county's projects in 2025 could align with Waldorf's street project. Kollar said that they would he would be open to offer Waldorf some kind of help that they can.

Christopherson agreed that the county can't favor one city over the others in the county, but he really wants to see Waldorf get help in some way due to their lack of resources compared to the other cities.

"This is just one community, we can't favor one over the other, but yet this is the smallest community that has the least amount of resources," Christopherson said about Waldorf.

The board accepted Scott Construction's base bid in an unanimous vote, with Waldorf set to look at other options for their street work.

Bituminous/concrete crushing

The county solicited quotes from five area contractors for the processing of bituminous and concrete stockpiles at the Solid Waste and Recycling Center.

Raw materials were last processed in 2022, with the stockpile being planned for use by the public works department to shoulder county highways. The material was ultimately used for the construction of the new yard-waste compost pad, with the county needing more material for this year to reduce the purchase of virgin/recycled aggregates.

Two quotes were received, with Holtmeier Construction, Inc. having the lowest bid. The bid was $57,300, which was significantly lower of the engineer's estimate of $80,000. Holtmeier also did the processing of materials in 2022 for the county. The board awarded the contract to Holtmeier Construction to process the material up to the $80,000 budgeted amount.

Pavement markings

For the striping of approximately 73 miles of county highways, the county received three quotes from pavement marking contractors. Kollar set the estimate for the project at $95,681, but all three quotes were over the estimate.

County staff also contacted the Minnesota Department of Transportation(MnDOT) regarding Master Partnership Contract No. 1050075. The county entered the partnership contract with the state in may 2022 to have the state perform work for the county when needed.

MnDOT told the county staff that they have the capacity to do the work under the contract and their estimated costs are approximately 50% under the engineer's estimate.

"I've already talked to MnDOT and a number of counties are doing this now," Kollar said about the contract.

Kollar and county staff recommended that the board reject all the quotes that came in so that the county could utilize the partnership contract with the state for the placement of placement markings on selected county highways. The recommendation was approved.