WORTHINGTON — The Worthington City Council awarded a contract for concrete repairs on Service Drive and Service Road improvements to Ideal Construction Inc. on a 3-1 vote Monday evening.
Ideal Construction submitted a bid of $1,936,468.75 for the project. The work will focus on the road in front of Heartland Tire, just north of Oxford Street and connected to Minnesota 60. The project will be backed by Local Road Improvement Program state funds. The concrete on both roads will be seven inches thick and will also include concrete curb and gutter repairs.
City Engineer Hyunmyeong Goo told the council that semis would not be seen frequenting the two roads.
“It is connected with Trunk Highway 60, but it's only right in, right out. It's not gonna be used as much as we think it would,” he stated. “I don't think it's gonna be a main route for semis to come through Service Road or Service Drive. We only think there’d maybe be traffic with the semi trucks for delivery to the Heartland Tire or some (other businesses), but not regular semi traffic.”
“It’d be more when they do Oxford Street, but that’d be about it,” Mayor Rick von Holdt added. “Otherwise, truck traffic is … going to end up going into residential areas with their trucks.”
Although semis won’t be a regular sight, council members had questions on what would be.
“Will the state facility happen to use that road or their truck?” Councilman Mike Kuhle, who ultimately cast the lone dissenting vote, asked.
“It's really hard to tell with only right in, right out,” Goo replied. "The main traffic going through (Minnesota) 60 will not go through there. They'll just take the roundabout and go straight east or just use Oxford. If they're taking the service road, it will be full semis all the way, especially on the north Service Drive.”
“(It’d be) congested,” von Holdt added. “I think they'll still use their main in and out for going right when they turn off onto Highway 60. There’s too much turning and if there's too much car traffic, they'll be parked on both sides of the road again.”
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During Monday's meeting, Goo also shared that the Minnesota Department of Transportation is no longer recommending seal coat projects (although the department is not against seal coat projects). The information was delivered during a conference last winter.
“If you didn't seal coat, you would just have to redo the road anyway?” Councilwoman Amy Ernst asked.
In 20 years, we'd do mill and overlay anyways without a seal coat,” Goo clarified. “MnDOT just didn't have a full support documentation behind if seal coat is helping to extend the life of the road or not at this point. In 20 years, we're looking at about $230,000 to just mill and overlay the top two or three inches. At the 40 year mark, we'll do a peel and pave, removing tire thickness instead of just mill and overlay. By that time, the bottom two or three inches will be over their life expectancy.”
Although Goo was as equally confident in a five inch bituminous option (for which Duininck Inc. offered a low bid of $1,662,700.80), the majority of council members were supportive of the thicker and more expensive concrete option.
“For the odd $200,000 extra, I'd almost go with the concrete,” Councilman Dennis Weber said. “In the long run, I think it'll be cheaper for both the city and the property owner.”
"The biggest problem is we don't have enough businesses to assess and keep the cost down,” Kuhle said.
“I don't know if ‘keeping the cost down’ is a proper way to explain it, but the assessment cost won’t go up that much,” Goo said. “Instead of 20, 30 or 40 residents, there's only seven or six residents along that street. But one of them, Sungold Heights, is very big, that's one of the biggest frontages. Heartland Tire has double frontage there too, but there's a little bit of front digit reduction calculation, so that would help a little bit more."
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In other action, the council:
- Resolved to move forward with the assessment of the East Flower Lane extension project.
- Approved Fertilizer Dealer Supply, Inc.’s change of zone request for a parcel of land extending to U.S. 59/Minnesota 60 along the south side of East Gateway Drive previously in the Transition Zone and ‘B-3’ General Business District to ‘M-1’ Light Manufacturing District.
- Approved Efrain Patino’s request to purchase approximately 8.7 acres of land in the city’s Bioscience Industrial Park for a new warehouse center with office and storage space on behalf of Mexicano Properties, Inc.
- Authorized the advertisement for bids for the North Ray Drive extension project.
- Approved the costs incurred for both the Service Drive and North Ray Drive projects.
- Approved a grant agreement and supporting documents for the Service Drive and Service Road improvement project, in addition to its bond-financed property certification resolution and resolution approving the grant agreement.
- Approved to vacate a utility easement for parcel 31-0687-100 northeast of Casey's on West Gateway Drive due to its vicinity to the right-of-way of East Flower Lane.
- Accepted Early Risers Kiwanis’ donation of two permanent concrete Cornhole boards to Chautauqua Park.
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