NW Illinois News

At the April 3 Freeport City Council meeting, officials presented two items on their agenda pertaining to the Adams Avenue improvements project.

The first item was an ordinance to authorize additional funds to the amounts set aside for the project, as inflation and other market environments have driven the total cost upward. The original cost was approximately $3 million, and the adjusted amount is $5.8 million, which would be additionally funded by the IEPA water supply loan program—up to $1.25 million of which could be eligible for loan forgiveness. Much of the increase is due to the increased cost of pipes and construction competition.

"As I mentioned, there's $1.2 million for the loan forgiveness here," Rob Boyer, the City's Public Works director, said in the meeting. "I don't anticipate—however, I'm not an economist—this price ever getting any cheaper. So today, I think, you know, we may have a $9.9 million bid. A year from now it'll be 12. And I've seen this this project started out at something like four originally. So overall, it's a good value and I think if we don't do it now, it's only going to be more expensive later."

Boyer also noted that the City has removed items from the project in the name of cost-cutting.

"We originally had involving state funds that were going to require the traffic circles and all kinds of additional things that were going to add cost to the project," he said. "So we did make that change to save costs. We were expecting anywhere between $14 and $20 million if we had gone through with the federal process."

The City received two bids for the project, the lowest one being approximately $9.9 million and the other at approximately $10.6 million. The Adams Avenue improvement project will feature a full reconstruction including new water mains, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, a new driving surface, and gutters. The project price is divided between the water infrastructure and the road reconstruction. The City completed the topographic work and design of the project and opened it up for bids on March 22.

Councilmembers asked Boyer some questions about the prices, including whether he expected them to decrease in the future, if there was anything else they could cut out of the project, and if they could sustainably pay back the loans. He answered all of them, explaining that the project in its current state was the best scenario for the city.

The council was then presented with the acceptance of a bid for the project, the bid from Helm Civil in the amount of $9,982,406.05. Some councilmembers were hesitant because of previous experiences with Helm Civil on a different road project. But Boyer was confident that the company would be held to all of the City’s standards and expectations, and they would have supervisors on site. The council did approve awarding the contract to Helm.