The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday morning awarded an $885,055 contract to Sikes Brothers Inc. for building a new entrance road and parking lot for the Bulloch County Public Works headquarters.
A new Public Works Department building was completed about two years ago as part of a project that also included some new buildings for the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office. But the access route to the public works facility remained behind the sheriff’s department and jail and Bulloch County Correctional Institute.
The paving project now awarded to Sikes Brothers, whose offered price was the lowest among four bidders, includes intersection improvements on U.S. Highway 301 and Veterans Memorial Parkway.
“Since the new public works building was constructed and kind of shifted to a different part of the site, the plan has been to put in a new entrance … off of 301 North at the bypass intersection, and that way all the heavy equipment and vehicles coming out of public works will not have to go through the sheriff’s department and C.I. area and wind their wind way through … like they do now,” said County Engineer Brad Deal.
Planning to tie this new entrance into the highway intersection, the county first had to get a permit from the Georgia Department of Transportation. The work will include adding two turn lanes on U.S. 301 North and one on Veterans Memorial Parkway, also known as the bypass, so trucks can turn directly into the public works facility.
The project even requires modifying the traffic signal, and the new entrance road is designed to bear the weight of heavy equipment, Deal told the commissioners.
“The low bid that we received from Sikes Brothers … was a good bit below the estimate that we had for the project, which was about $1.1 million,” he said.
Other bidders were Ellis Wood Contracting, Mill Creek Construction and Reeves Construction, with offers ranging from a little less than $950,000 to almost $1.5 million.
Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or T-SPLOST, revenue will be used to pay for the project. The commissioners’ vote awarding the contract to Sikes Brothers was unanimous.
Road repair contract
Ellis Wood Contracting won a $379,055 contract, also awarded Tuesday, on a separate bid to repair damaged asphalt on various county roads. The project list includes areas on Arcola Road and Ash Branch Church Road, the Burkhalter-Cawana Road intersection, Josh Deal Road, Sprayberry Court, Barri Way, Irongate Place, Pretoria Rushing Road, Pulaski Road and South Wynn Road. These are areas where damage to pavement was too severe to be patched by county public works personnel, a staff memo stated.
“We had estimated for the project to cost about $250,000,” Deal said. “The bids did come in a little bit higher than we expected, and looking at the bids, that was mainly due to the price of asphalt being higher than what we expected. “
The only other listed bid for the patching contract was from Sikes Brothers, who had asked $386,072. The commissioners’ vote awarding the contract to Ellis Wood at the $379,055 price was unanimous.
Funding sources for the pavement repair work include both the T-SPLOST and, from Georgia DOT, the annual Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant, or LMIG. The county had $1,637,310 from the LMIG and $1.5 million from T-SPLOST budgeted for resurfacing and road repairs this fiscal year, for a total of $3,137,310, according to the county staff memo.
So, the $379,055 repair contract leaves about $2.75 million for resurfacing, with a bid yet to go out.