Oakmont Council Approves Bid on Park Resurfacing, Looks For More Bids on Track Resurfacing

Oakmont Borough Council has approved a contract for the Riverside Park court and playground resurfacing project, but they don't have a set cost for the project yet.

At Monday’s council meeting, officials hired Northern Athletic Construction with the caveat that the estimate provided by the company for work on the playground would be revised.

According to A.J. Schwartz, managing principal for Environmental Planning and Design LLC—the company assisting with the park project—the bidder for Northern Athletic Construction misinterpreted the specifications in the packet provided by council to contractors interested in bidding. The current estimate is $29,000 for the work Northern Athletic Construction expected on the playground, which includes removing and relocating the two existing large play structures. However, the play structures do not need to be moved.

“We can buy everything new and install them for less than $29,000,” Schwartz said. “I expect this cost to only be around $6,000 once the specifications are revisited.”

Schwartz said he expected a new estimate from Northern Athletic Construction by the end of the week. Currently, the estimate from Northern Athletic Construction for the resurfacing work on the tennis courts, basketball courts and playground is $325,926, which is about $75,000 over budget.

“Ninety percent of [Northern Athletic Construction’s] estimate is spot on,” Schwartz said. “About $60,000 of it needs to be renegotiated. We’ll be close [to the budgeted amount], but we’ll probably still go a little over after some numbers change.”

Also, according to Schwartz, the original estimate for paving the tennis and basketball courts was based off of a previous road paving project, which, Schwartz said, was not the right thing to do because road paving materials are different from those used in this kind of work.

A special limestone mixture is used on courts that costs more than what is used on roads, according to Schwartz.

Borough Manager Bruce Jamison said additional work on the park’s infrastructure—new sewer, water and storm lines, and additional electrical work—done in preparation of lighting in the future also added to the initial budgeted amount.

Jamison asked if the timeline for the project, which was targeted to complete by Sept. 1, was a concern.

“It is enough time to complete this work,” Schwartz said. “However, according to the contractors we’ve spoken to, they don’t have enough people to work on it now because they’re on other jobs, and it made them nervous.”

According to Schwartz, this was probably the reason Northern Athletic Construction was the only company to submit a bid and accounts for some of the cost.

Council also agreed to rebid the resurfacing of the track at the park with a few changes from the previous specifications because contractors didn't submit bids for the work.

Schwartz advised council to extend the schedule for the track work and break up the work into two stages. The first would be paving asphalt on the track—to be completed no later than Nov. 1—and the second is the application of a to-be-determined synthetic surface by July 30, 2012.

“It’ll be hard to hold a meet on just an asphalt track so we’ll have to find another option for the school,” Council President Tim Favo said. “We tried to keep the downtime of the track minimal, but we just can’t.”

According to Schwartz, the asphalt track should remain intact even through winter with normal maintenance.

Council agreed that if the schedule was extended for the track, then it should be extended for the other resurfacing work if it saves money. However, if extending the schedule does not offer any savings, council will require the resurfacing of the tennis and basketball courts and the playground to be complete by the original date of Sept. 1.

The public request for bids will begin on July 18 and contractors who were at a previous informational meeting will be invited back to submit bids. Bids are due by the Aug. 8 voting meeting. Council might discuss bids then.

According to Schwartz, bids for the last piece of the park renovation—building a trail and pavilions—will be requested in early fall.