Fruitland takes advantage of good timing to finish projects
City moves ahead with upgrade ventures even as economy falters
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Thursday, June 19, 2008 12:36 PM PDT
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| An Idaho Sand & Gravel crew finishes paving the last strip of the main road on the Allen Avenue extension project Wednesday in Fruitland. Because of timing and the slowdown in the economy, the city is not facing the same worries about completing projects because of the skyrocketing fuel prices, which also affects cost of other items, such as asphalt. |
FRUITLAND — The city of Fruitland has not experienced the same worries other local government agencies have regarding rising gas prices hindering the ability to complete road or other projects, in part because of timing and the slowdown in the economy.
Fruitland Public Works Supervisor Jerry Campbell said the city’s current road improvements and other upgrades are on schedule, and a number of projects have already been completed.
“Luckily, the lack of work in the area has offset the fuel prices, so a lot of contractors don’t have near as much work and it’s forcing more competitive bids from the labor end of it,” he said.
With sewer rehabilitation upgrades, road improvement projects on Allen Avenue and South Pennsylvania Avenue and various projects related to the expansion of the water treatment plant, the city has tackled plenty of projects in the past few months and, Campbell said, everything has worked in the city’s favor.
“We don’t look like we’ll have to cut any projects short or stall any projects because everything has come in within the engineers’ estimates,” he said.
Not only has the city saved money on quite a few projects coming in under budget because of the high number of bids, Campbell said he thinks the slower economy appears to be saving the city money overall.
“I truly believe that if there was still a robust building boom ... I think we would have less bidders and less competitiveness and higher prices submitted on the bids,” he said.
Also, Campbell said, the city appears to be benefiting from the timing of its projects. The road improvement projects — the Allen Avenue extension, which will be completed in July, and South Pennsylvania, which began this week — for example, were funded through grants awarded two or three years ago.
“The two jobs we’ve got were bid last November, and that was before the fuel really escalated,” he said, adding prices have jumped drastically in the last six months. “If we bid today it may very well have affected the overall price.”
Campbell said the city doesn’t have any other big street improvements planned in the near future. The next project, improvements on Southwest Third Street, is still in a holding pattern pending notification of a grant award and has not even been designed for construction yet, he said.
Further down the road, the Idaho Transportation Department northbound Payette River bridge replacement is still on schedule, with bids likely to go out in late summer or early fall, ITD District 3 assistant engineer of engineering Scott Gurnsey said.
He said, as of an ITD project meeting Wednesday, no recommendations to alter the schedule have been made, although he did not say a future funding issue couldn’t affect the project’s status.
So far, however, ITD appears to be experiencing the same good fortune in bids that Fruitland has. Gurnsey said the bids submitted to ITD for projects have been less than engineers’ estimates, and more contractors have been bidding as well.
“Right now we’re not seeing the trend toward higher bids, but that could change at any time,” he said.
