Favorable bid frees up funds for trails in Morgan City

In a rare piece of good news in these inflationary times,  the winning bid for Morgan City’s annual street maintenance project came in $200,000 under city engineer estimates, City Manager Ty Bailey told Mayor Steve Gale and members of the city council at their Feb. 27 meeting.

The low bid in the amount of $760,797.55 was submitted by Post Asphalt Paving and Construction out of Ogden, which the city’s engineering consultant recommended due to their low bid, experience in doing similar work and good references. 

There was $285,798.10 between Post and the highest bidder Geneva Rock Product’s bid of $1,046,595.65. The other bidders were Staker & Parson Companies, Granite Construction Company, Advanced Paving & Construction, BH. Inc., and Stapp Construction.

“We bid out our maintenance project and got a favorable bid,” Bailey said. “We’re pretty happy about that. “We’ve done work with Post before and are happy with the work they provide. We were also happy with the number of bidders we got.

Councilmember Dave Alexander commented on the closeness of the bids. “During COVID, bidders were all over the map,” he said. “I remember being concerned about that. The number of bidders that we got and the fact that they’re tightly grouped you feel better about it.” 

The project involves significant work on Deer Valley Drive including installing new concrete curb and gutter and an ADA ramp, replacing sidewalk on 700 East, along with chip sealing several city streets:

Young St. from bridge to State St.

200 East from bridge to 100 South

100 North from 200 East to State St.

100 North from 300 West to 525 West including cul-de-sacs

Valarie St. from Young St. to end

Commercial St. from 100 North to county line 

100 North & 300 East: Commercial St. to 125 North

With such a favorable bid, Bailey said the city now has the funds to put a trail project on Commercial Street out to bid.

“We were going to do that in two segments, and now with the money that we saved on this we’re also going to put out to bid on two different schedules to go under the bridge so we can get it all done in one project,” he said.

The city will put the project out to bid on two different schedules in case bids for the trail do not come in as favorably as the maintenance project. That way, regardless of the bid amounts, the city will at least be able to get the Commercial Street portion of the project done, Bailey said.

The first section would be from the edge of the sidewalk on Commercial St. to the fairgrounds property. The second would be a loop under the bridge and back. This will put the city ahead on that project by a year over previous expectations, he said. λ