The Williston Park Village Board voted to award a $2.26 million bid to Reet Constructing Corp. at a special meeting on Monday night to repair approximately two miles of roads in the village.
Port Washington-based Reet was the lowest bidder of eight companies vying for the contract, with the highest bid at $3.45 million.
The board selected Reet on the recommendation of Kenneth Pritchard, vice president of Dvirka & Bartolucci Consulting Engineers, which has been retained for engineering on the project.
Village trustees said they convened a special meeting on Monday to expedite the project. The trustees had voted to issue $2 million in bonds for the roads project at their regular board meeting last month. The board is also using approximately $225,000 from the state Consolidated Highway Improvement Program for the project.
Pritchard said Dvirka & Bartolucci had worked with Reet two years ago and said the company “fully understands the job.” He also said he had checked references the company provided and said the Village of Valley Stream has used Reet Constructing for the past six years.
The contractor will have 120 days to complete the work from the time it receives notice to proceed on the project next week, Pritchard said.
Village streets scheduled for repairs are those in greatest need of upgrades, according to Pritchard, who said they fall into the D through F categories on a scale of A through F with F representing roads in the worst condition.
Village Trustee Teresa Thomann asked whether adverse weather could extend the duration of the road improvement project.
“It would have to be extraordinary weather,” Pritchard said.
Williston Park Superintendent of Public Works Keith Bunnell said he wouldn’t want Reet to be paving on wet road surfaces. He said the lowest temperature limit for paving roads is 40 degrees, so he said completion of the project could be delayed if the contractor encounters cold weather. If weather doesn’t pose an impediment, the 120-day deadline would put the project completion date in mid-November.
Reet will be repairing both asphalt-based and concrete based roads in the project, Pritchard said. The asphalt roads are in the western and southern areas of the village. The concrete-based roads are in the eastern half of the village. For the asphalt roads, he said Reet will employ a “mix in place” technique of grinding eight or nine inches of the road surface and mixing that asphalt and underlying sand into the new road surface.
Pritchard said his company has had nor problems using that technique in previous jobs.
Bunnell said residents’ driveway aprons would be refurbished “as needed” on the streets to be resurfaced.
The trustees discussed the idea of allowing residents on streets not being resurfaced to engage Reet to repair their driveway aprons. But Thomann said that would be too “distracting” and could adversely affect the company’s timetable to complete the work.
“Most contractors do not want to do individual jobs,” Pritchard said.
Pritchard suggested permitting Reet to subcontract “ancillary” work to replace lead water pipes from main water lines to the curbs at an additional cost of $100,000 to $150,000.
“It’s the right thing to do, no question,” said Bunnell.
He said if the lead pipes were not replaced, they would likely break under the pressure of the road work.
The remaining question is the estimate Reet Constructing will give the village board for subcontracting the water pipe replacement. If the cost of the subcontracting exceeds the cost of previous road projects, the village trustees agreed to separately seek bids for that work.
