It will be a little longer before a project begins to rebuild the south end of Sayle Street.
City Manager Massoud Ebrahim said the one bid received for the effort has been rejected.
“We moved to reject the bid because it is not competitive and we don’t know if it is a good price or a bad price,” Ebrahim told the Greenville City Council.
The plan now is to combine the work on Sayle Street with similar efforts planned for the south end of Stonewall Street and a portion of Webb Street — all of which were approved by voters in a bond election last year — into one larger project. But doing so will take some time.
Pavecon Public Works of Grand Prairie was the sole bidder on the Sayle Street project earlier this month, submitting an estimate of $988,166.55.
The section of Sayle Street included in the package was never designed to handle the vehicle load it has received since Lowe’s and the adjacent Kari Beth shopping center were constructed, as well as the traffic coming from the Greenville SportsPark. Cost of the work was estimated at $920,000.
Ebrahim said he had contacted some road and bridge contractor on an informal basis, to see if they might be interested in the work if the package was sent out for bids again. Ebrahim was told that the Sayle Street project on its own was too small, as the contractors were already involved with highway and major thoroughfare repairs and expansions.
“They are all busy with mega projects and there is more money for them to make,” Ebrahim said. “That is why they are not interested.”
Ebrahim said the plan now is to combine the three street rebuilding projects — the first stage of a street bond approved by local voters in May 2013 — into one bid package costing approximately $5 million. But the engineering for Stonewall and Webb Street projects are not yet ready.
“Stonewall is 90 percent completed,” Ebrahim said, referring to the rebuilding of Stonewall Street between Mockingbird Lane and Interstate 30. The work will involve the acquisition of right-of-way in order to widen the street.
“We’re doing the best we can not to get into any eminent domain or condemnation,” Ebrahim said.
The engineering for Webb Street between Sayle and Wesley Streets is about 75 percent complete, he noted.
“We have the same challenge on Webb Street that we have on Stonewall,” Ebrahim explained, in reference to the need for right-of-way for the project.
On May 11, 2013 voters approved the issuance of $12.6 million in bonds to pay for the reconstruction of nine local streets. The bond proposition called for rebuilding the above three streets during the current fiscal year.
