LAKEPORT >> Updates regarding the Downtown Lakeport Improvement Project were presented to the Lakeport Economic Development Advisory Committee Wednesday.
“Engineering is moving forward, we should be having a walkthrough with the city council in a couple of weeks,” Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira said. “We’re hoping that it should be going out to bid in the near future.”
In October of last year, requests for proposals (RFP) were sent out to develop and complete civil engineering plans for Phase 2 of the project, with Sacramento-based Crawford and Associates, Inc., providing the only bid.
Phase 2 of consisted of design engineering and construction plans, including landscaping, curb and drainage improvements, limited installation of street furniture, streetlights and the repaving of Main Street. The project will also widen sidewalks by two feet on both sides of Main Street; move street lights to the new edge of sidewalk; install new grates; plant trees; install new curb storm drain inlets, as well as sewer and water piping infrastructure.
A total of $1.9 million in redevelopment funds from the California Department of Finance will finance the project.
“It will make the street narrower, which gives the affect that people slow down,” Silveira told the committee. “It’s traffic calming.”
Originally, the council awarded a contract Ukiah-based Rau and Associates, Inc. for design engineering and construction plans after the first RFP was sent out in 2009.
The company began work on the plans the following year. However, 2011 saw Gov. Jerry Brown and the state legislature pass a measure to dissolve all redevelopment agencies in California.
The original contract totaled a little less than $317,000, of which a little less than $284,000 was paid before the termination of redevelopment agencies.
A new contract with Crawford and Associates totaling a little less than $165,000, as the scope of the agreement was reduced was approved in April.
“Because of redevelopment going away and funding getting cut, we had to make the project much smaller,” Silveira said.
The project area will be on Main Street between First and Fourth streets.
Services provided by Crawford and Associated included mapping and preliminary design of the project, construction bid assistance and 100-percent completion of the construction document phase.
“Before we had to go out for bid again, we wanted to start shortly after the Fourth of July,” Silveira explained. “So now it will probably be in the fall.”
Contact J. W. Burch, IV at 900-2022.
