Arnold trims road paving project to fit city's budget

Arnold is trimming a planned road paving project to fit it into the city’s budget, and doing that changed which company is the apparent low bidder.

Arnold opened bids last week from nine companies for the Fifth Avenue and Freeport Road street improvements, said city Engineer Mark Gera said.

Youngblood Paving, of Wampum, was the lowest bidder with a price of about $325,506, Gera said during a city council meeting Tuesday.

The meeting was the council’s first to be held virtually because of the covid-19 pandemic. A recording of the meeting is available on YouTube.

Youngblood’s bid came in over the city’s $299,000 budget for the project, Gera said.

Gera said the city has the right to eliminate or change bid items to its benefit. In doing so to get it to fit within the city’s budget, Gera said the city removed concrete curb replacement, which he described as a bonus if the city had the money, and work on 14th Street from Fifth Avenue toward Constitution Boulevard, which he said was a small part of the project.

With that work removed, Gera said the new lower bidder is Derry Construction, of Latrobe, at $296,813.

Gera said the only way Youngblood remains the low bidder is if work on 14th Street is eliminated, in which case the cost is $312,000, still over the city’s budget.

Gera said a benefit to awarding the contract to Derry is that the company’s price for base repair is $23,000, or $157 per ton.

“Chances are we’re not going to use that much base repair,” he said. “We always put that in as something we need, especially down on Fifth Avenue because of the soil. Any monies left over could go back into 14th Street.”

Council did not award the contract. Gera and city Solicitor David Regoli will review Derry’s bid.

In addition to Youngblood and Derry, the other bidders were A. Liberoni of Plum; A. Folino of Oakmont; ConstructConnect of Norcross, Ga.; Daniels Excavating of Greensburg; El Grande Industries of Donora; Independent Enterprises of Oakdale; and Tresco Paving of Pittsburgh.