WESTFIELD – The Board of Public Works voted Tuesday night to award contracts of nearly $5.5 million to reconstruct the intersection of North Elm and Notre Dame streets and to continue construction of the Columbia Greenway.
The board approved the two lowest bidders for those two projects. The contract for the North Elm Street improvements was awarded to Baltazar Contractors inc., of Ludlow which submitted a bid of $4,421, 421 for that work.
Ironically the second lowest bidder for the North Elm Project was the contractor awarded the next phase of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail Construction. E.T.&L. Corporation submitted the next lowest bid, $4,862,030 for the North Elm/Notre Dame intersection improvements.
E.T.&L. was awarded the contract to extend the rail trail from its current terminus on East Silver Street to the area of the Stop & Shop supermarket on Main Street. The second lowest bid for that work, $1,188,622, was submitted by Ludlow Construction of Ludlow.
City Engineer Mark Cressotti said the Columbia Greenway extension project “will start post haste” because of requirements to spend a $2 million grant awarded by the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs by June 30, the end of the fiscal year.
“I have no concerns about meeting that timeline,” Cressotti said. “They’ll spend that money within the time requirement.”
That grant money, which has to be encumbered by June 30, is being used to fund construction of a new bridge over East Silver Street and an underpass connecting the St. Dennis Street., and Taylor Avenue neighborhoods.
Cressotti said that the bridge and underpass elements of the rail trail extension were pulled out and bid separately because of the lead time required to have the bridge steel fabricated. ET&L was hired in January for construction of a bridge over East Silver Street and an underpass connecting the Hedges Avenue and Taylor Avenue neighborhoods, will continue with that work under a $700,000 contract.
Cressotti said the North Elm/Notre Dame intersection improvement work will most likely begin in June because the city has to acquire land needed to widen the roadway to accommodate installation of dedicated left turn lanes, both north and south on North Elm Street and in the eastbound lane of Notre Dame Street coming down of Prospect Hill.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik submitted two requests to the City Council at its May 7 meeting. A request to appropriate $86,575 for land takings was referred to the council’s Finance Committee, while a separate eminent domain taking for temporary and permanent easements was referred to the Legislative & Ordinance Committee.
“The funding is in place, the City Council just has to authorize its expenditure,” Cressotti said. That work is being paid through a $10 million bond approved last year for improvements to the Route 10 and 202 corridor.
