A trio of bridges are in line for a facelift after the Greene County Commission approved a nearly $1.2 million contract June 20.
Repair work on two of the bridges, and a complete replacement of the third, is slated to begin in 2023, last 120 days and force intermittent road closures.
While none of the bridges are in Springfield city limits, each bridge carries plenty of Springfield traffic due to their close proximities to the city.
The repair work on the three bridges was packaged together into one contract in order to attract a bidder. Bidding out the bridges individually would have been difficult due to the limited scope of work, according to Adam Humphrey, the Greene County Highway Department interim administrator.
“We're finding right now that it's just very hard to attract contractors to do these kinds of smaller scopes of work and you're having to mobilize to three different locations to do it,” Humphrey told the County Commission at its Tuesday morning session. “It just wasn't a very attractive project with all the other abundance of work out there right now.”
Contract awarded higher than estimated cost
Springfield-based Hartman and Company, Inc. was awarded the contract for the $1,194,474 project bundle, despite engineers' estimates that it would cost $848,632.
Humphrey attributed the disparity between the final contract and the initial estimate to the difficulty of gauging the cost of repairing and replacing these “unique” structures.
“They don't fall within typical work categories where we can compare statewide bid averages and things like that,” Humphrey said.
Despite the nearly $350,000 difference, it was recommended that the Greene County Highway Department move forward with the contract, rather than try and repackage or rebid the projects due to the likely difficulty in attracting any new bidders, according to Humphrey.
“Potentially Hartman would bid it again, but I think their price is just going to continue to go up as they take on more and more contracts,” he said.
The total construction cost of the three bridges is pretty comparable to an average sized full bridge replacement contract, according to Humphrey.
Details on the bridges
Humphrey told the commissioners that this contract would be the most cost-effective option for the county, and that it would be advantageous from a timeliness standpoint to get started on the projects.
The most significant work on any of the structures entails a complete replacement of a bridge, and some nearby road improvements on East Valley Water Mill Road just north of Springfield. The bridge, which carries traffic over the Grandview Branch, is located between North Farm Road 171, or Barnes Avenue, and Glenstone Avenue, just north of Interstate 44.
Another of the three bridges is sandwiched between Springfield city limits, just north of West Sunshine Street. The bridge, a part of West Farm Road 150 that crosses over Wilsons Creek, is in line for deck rehabilitation work.
Lastly, the bridge furthest from Springfield, is just off of Shelby Road on North Farm Road 171. The bridge is in need of repairs on column, joints and approach pavement. It sits above the Little Sac River, which flows from Fellows Lake.
Each bridge will require road closures during construction, with varying timetables to be established at a preconstruction meeting. Hartman is anticipated to begin construction in 2023, and will have 120 days to complete work on all three bridges.
