ELY—St. Louis County has awarded a $4.214 million contract for the Harvey Street reconstruction to Casper Construction of Grand Rapids. The bid was 11.37 percent lower than the county engineer’s estimate for the work.
The project will replace the pavement and utilities on Harvey Street from Central Avenue to Ninth Ave. E. Construction is expected to start on May 19 and finish by Oct. 11. The work is jointly funded by the county and the city of Ely.
The county solicited bids on April 3 and received four: $4,214,000 from Casper, $4,251,811 from Utility Systems of America of Eveleth, $4,337,292 from KGM Contractors of Angora, and $4,442,600 from Northland Constructors of Duluth. Every bid came in under the county estimate of $4,754,797.
The county awarded the project to Casper Construction at its April 15 Committee of the Whole Meeting. The first preconstruction planning meeting is next week in Virginia.
The city of Ely’s portion of the project is budgeted for $390,881. The city will replace the utilities along Harvey St. once the old pavement has been removed. The city will also replace the water main by the Ely Senior Center and perform additional street repair on Conan St. between Second and Third Aves. E.
“We told the county to go ahead approve the work so long as the accepted bid did not exceed our budgeted cost by more than 10 percent,” Ely Clerk-Treasurer Harold Langowski told the Timberjay. “If it was over that, then the county would need to get the approval of the city council to go over that amount. But as you can see, they didn’t need to.”