On time and under budget, the College Avenue infrastructure project in Wessington Springs comprised of new sanitary sewer, water mains and street is on schedule to be completed by the first week of August.
During a construction meeting held Monday at Wessington Springs City Hall, Project Engineer Carter Klapperich of SPN and Associates said that 60 additional feet of six inch pipe and a fire hydrant is all that remains to be done for the underground scope of the project.
“The low pressure water main is done and the sanitary sewer portion of the project is complete,” he said. “The street crew is coming in next week. They’ll start preparing for curb and gutter between 2nd and 1st and then the rest of the project is patches of curb and gutter.”
Paving is scheduled for later in July and Klapperich said the paving contractor will try to tie in the College Avenue job with the paving portion of the Wessington Springs Airport projects, which are also currently underway.
Being under budget allows for additional infrastructure improvements
When bids were originally let for the project, a sole bid came in at $1.5 million and the city opted to go out for bids at a later date while pursuing more American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and State Revolving Loan funds (SRFs).
The second round of bids came in with the low bidder being Menning Excavating at a considerably lower price, $1,042,331.20. During the bidding process, the city was able to obtain more ARPA and SRF funding and concurrently, a re-inventory of the cast iron throughout town was completed, finding very old cast iron west of the ball field but not included in the original bid. The additional funding is being put toward water and sewer main replacements to begin in July.
Ball park water main replacement
Klapperich is also serving as project engineer for the water main replacement west of the David Jost Ball Field.
“The College Avenue project came in under budget and it was identified after the project was bid that the old cast behind the ball field was in need of replacement. The city had already been granted the ARPA funds and decided to use them,” he explained.
Brian McGinnis of Planning and Development District III shared that the South Dakota Department of Natural Resources (DANR) was key with this project.
“DANR has been very cooperative with making this project a success,” he pointed out.
The contractor for the $99,365 project is TLC Olson Construction. This week the contractor will bring in materials and mobilize, with a 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. work day planned. The staging area will be the same for this project as the College Avenue project, with a considerably shorter timeline to completion. The completion date is set at July 18.
The only water disruption for the project will occur when the contractor installs a hydrant, whereupon the three homes north of the ball park will temporarily be without water.