Vine Street work comes in under budget

3/8/2013

By DAWNE LEIKER

dleiker@dailynews.net

It could be less than a month before motorists see the telltale signs of Vine Street reconstruction in progress. Hays city commissioners at their Thursday night work session discussed construction bids and several details concerning the project.

"Bids came in and they are very good compared to what the engineer's estimates were," Assistant Public Works Director John Braun told commissioners.

The project to reconstruct Vine Street from 13th to 22nd streets will proceed nearly identically to the reconstruction of 22nd to 27th streets, Braun said. The top 2 inches of asphalt overlay will be milled off, the concrete base removed and the earthen base beneath will be reworked, then 9 inches of concrete pavement will be reinstalled.

Pavers Inc. of Salina submitted the low bid of $1 million, and according to Braun, will begin the project in early to mid-April should their bid be approved at next week's city commission meeting, and take approximately 60 working days. Pavers' bid was well below the engineer's estimate for the project of $1.2 million.

A Kansas Department of Transportation connecting link grant will pay 50 percent of the construction costs up to $400,000, leaving the city of Hays' share at $649,000.

In 2004, Vine Street from 13th to 27th was milled and overlaid with 2 inches of asphalt. At that time, both the engineers and contractors involved in the project agreed the overlay was only a temporary repair job, and the next projet would need to be a full pavement replacement. Since then, the mill and overlay has begun to fail due to the deterioration of the concrete base below it.

One business, Wendy's Restaurant, which is located along the section of Vine Street set for reconstruction, lacks a second entrance.

"John (Braun) approached the property owner and said this is what we're doing, this is going to cause you disruption," said City Manager Toby Doughtery.

After discussing the possibility of working with the business on obtaining KDOT grant funds to open another access point to the restaurant, Dougherty said the property owner declined.