BACKGROUND
The Hillcrest neighborhood, located west of I-80 between Darling Way and Douglas Blvd, was constructed in the mid 1940’s and 1950’s. In the years since, staff has been required to perform excessive maintenance during storm events to clear leaves and debris from older-style storm drain inlets that have limited capacity. Additionally, the storm drain pipe system routinely exceeds capacity causing standing water in streets and private property. Staff has received numerous requests from residents to improve drainage in the neighborhood.
At its January 13th, 2015 meeting, the City Council approved a contract with Wood Rodgers, Inc. for analysis of the existing storm drain system and for preparation of improvement plans to improve drainage in the neighborhood. At its September 21, 2016 meeting, City Council authorized the first amendment to the PDSA with Wood Rodgers, Inc. for the design of approximately 3,000 linear feet of additional storm drain mainline and tributary storm drain improvements. In its May 10, 2017 meeting, the City Council authorized staff to call for bids to construct the project combined with planned storm drain improvements in the Crestmont neighborhood. The combined Hillcrest & Crestmont Drainage Improvement Project has been advertised two times since. The first advertisement did not yield any bids and the subsequent advertisement yielded bids substantially higher than the funds available for the project. In response, staff performed a 3rd party constructability review of the project and it was concluded that the bids received are reasonable for the work in the current construction climate. As a result of this determination and due to the lack of available budget, staff has recommended rejection of the bids as a separate action on tonight's (February 20, 2019) City Council meeting agenda.
Given the current cost of construction and the available budget, Wood Rodgers, Inc. and staff have identified design modifications that are expected to reduce the cost of the project while maintaining critical drainage improvements, such as maintaining existing pipes in parallel with proposed improvements of reduced size. Additionally, Wood Rodgers, Inc. will separate portions of the design to be included as alternate bid items to allow their construction to occur based on available budget.
These modifications to the improvement plans are additional services for Wood Rodgers, Inc. that are expected to cost the not to exceed amount of $71,320, as shown in Exhibit A of the attached amendment. The original PDSA and 1st amendment were previously approved for the combined not to exceed amount of $446,639.66. This second amendment brings the total cost of the agreement to $517,959.66.
The modified design is anticipated to be completed in March 2019, with construction to start in late Spring of 2019.