Town chooses N.Y. contractor for Summer Street upgrades

Summer Street is going to get a $450,000 facelift this summer.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100419/NEWS02/4190343                   # # # # Town chooses N.Y. contractor for Summer Street upgrades  •  Rutland Herald  •  By Susan Smallheer STAFF WRITER - Published: April 19, 2010  •  SPRINGFIELD – Summer Street is going to get a $450,000 facelift this summer.  •  The town recently awarded the job to the Gorman Group of Albany, N.Y., the firm that did similar work in town on repaving Park and Union streets two years ago, Town Manager Robert Forguites said.  •  Forguites said the Gorman Group was the lowest of five bidders at $449,725.  •  "We got five contractors to bid on it and we agreed that the job should go to Gorman," he said. The high bid was from Pike Industries for $547,000, he said.  •  Forguites said the project won't start until June, to allow the completion of two water improvement projects in the project area.  •  The Summer Street project will stretch from Summer Hill to Wilmuth Drive, which Forguites said was a distance of about 4,200 feet.  •  Harry Henderson, the Springfield director of public works, said the project came in under estimates. Henderson said he had budgeted about $600,000 for the project, and the savings, about $150,000, is expected to go back into the budget.  •  Henderson said he tried to convince Forguites to spend the money on other road projects in town, but so far he hasn't had any luck.  •  The project had been thought to be part of the state-funded rebuilding of Skitchewaug Trail, as Route 143 is known locally. But the state had balked at doing the Summer Street portion of the project because at one time it included stormwater drains. The project has been postponed and pushed back a couple of times because of town finances and last summer, the glut of other town construction projects pushed it to 2010.  •  "They will grind the old road up and put new paving down and put in new sidewalks," Forguites said.  •  Henderson said 4-1/2 inches of pavement will be ground down and laid back down as a base for the road.  •  The decision was made to install new asphalt sidewalks, rather than concrete, Henderson said. There will be new granite curbing, he said.  •  Asphalt sidewalks, similar to the sidewalks installed on Park and Union street, are more forgiving, he said, and are more easily fixed. Concrete sidewalks cost about double the asphalt walkways, he said.  •  Henderson said because the project came in under budget, the sidewalk on both sides of the street will be completely redone.  •  Concrete sidewalks are prone to cracking, and fixing them is time consuming and expensive. Patching an asphalt sidewalk is relatively easy, he said.  •  With any luck, he said, the project will be completed by late August or early September, adding that he didn't anticipate the need for any detours during the actual construction, either the grinding of the existing pavement or tearing out the old sidewalks.  •