Sidewalk project set after July 4

MEEKER I The project grant was awarded in 2008, but the first phase of the Town of Meeker’s grant from the Colorado Department of Transportation to design and build sidewalks and curbs along both sides of Market Street through town is expected to begin sometime after the Fourth of July.
The first phase will see the construction of sidewalks from the east side of Watt’s Ranch Market on the north side of Market Street to Fourth Street and, if a bid alternate is funded, to place pedestrian highway crossings at the intersections of Market Street with Fifth and Eighth streets.
“We don’t want to have Market Street torn up for the Fourth of July, and there are a lot of projects happening this summer.” Meeker Town Administrator Scott Meszaros said. “We had some issues with a right-of-way easement, but our engineer has requested federal funding authorization. The first phase has included the engineering and design plans for the entire project.
“Hopefully this will make the completion of this phase and future work much less problematic than our sluggish experiences to date, he said.
The remaining work on phase one, which entails construction, is expected to cost CDOT $490,000 and Meeker’s share would be $118,000. The cost of phase one since inception of the project is roughly $900,000, of which 20 percent has been town funding.
“We should go out for bid around May 30,” Meszaros said, adding that the project has to be advertised with for a minimum of three weeks. “We are tentatively scheduled to open the bids around June 18 and hopefully award the bids before July 1.
“That should allow for construction to commence shortly after the Fourth of July,” Meszaros said, adding, “if the awarded contractor can begin that quickly, the project should take several weeks to complete, and we want to see it done before the snow flies,” he said.
Meszaros said the town’s plan is to install the sidewalks and curbs along the entire north side of Market Street and then to come back and complete them on the south side.
There are several issues yet to be handled regarding the south side, he said.
“We haven’t decided, since the general engineering and designing work is complete for both sides of Market, whether we will seek CDOT funding to help on the remainder of the work or whether the town will just go ahead and do a small portion at a time,” Meszaros said.
“It would be great if we could get CDOT funding to help,” he said. “But with all the flood-related work from last fall, the department has much to do on the Front Range, and funding for Meeker may not happen.”