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Date: 8/25/2020
HUNTINGTON – Thirteen bids were submitted for drainage and road surface improvements to Kennedy Drive, which was awarded a grant from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.
John O’Leary, senior planner for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission which administers the grants on behalf of the towns, will be the program manager for the road construction. For the first time ever, the bids for the project were opened on Facebook Live on the PVPC page.
O’Leary said bids have to be opened publicly, but with the policy of not having people gathered, they figured they would try doing it that way. The low bidder was A. Martins and Sons in Ludlow, with a bid of $332,751, and an alternate bid of $97,343 for an extension of road construction. O’Leary said they are still finalizing the award.
The work will include drainage and road surface improvements to Kennedy Drive, along 2,500 linear feet; “Improving the swale along the side of the roadway, work on existing drainage structures that might need to be replaced, and the surface. In certain areas of the road oftentimes significant ice will build up, where water will puddle or congregate, which can potentially cause unsafe driving conditions in winter,” O’Leary said, adding that the work should eliminate that problem.
He said he anticipates that construction will get underway in the next couple of months, and the road should be substantially complete by the end of the year’s construction season.
The total grant award was $562,952, which O’Leary said included design and construction. Design work has been completed by Weston and Sampson Engineers in Rocky Hill, CT at a cost of $48,900.
Kennedy Drive was the only roadway construction project included in the FY19 CDBG grant cycle. O’Leary said a design and build for Crescent Street was included in the FY20 grant cycle, which has been submitted, but has not yet been awarded. “Typically we would have heard by now. With everything that’s going on, it’s been slightly postponed; we don’t have any idea for how long. That would be the next project in line,” he said.
“PVPC has been a great asset in getting these block grants,” said Huntington Highway Superintendent Charles “Chip” Dazelle. He said that the reconstruction of Kennedy Drive has been on plate for a long time, but it takes a couple of years to get the grants.
Dazelle said Kennedy Drive is not long, about a half mile, but has fifteen residents and also steers up into Lowell Lane, so it’s a busy road. He said Kennedy Drive met the grant income requirements, but Lowell Lane did not.
Dazelle said the town will use Chapter 90 funds to coat over Lowell Lane this year, “so when they do Kennedy Dr it will be one big finished project, instead of driving heavy machinery over a newly reconstructed road.”
He said the town is getting $161,508 in Chapter 90 this year, compared to $169,000 seven years ago “We never get enough. We haven’t gone up in years; materials, pricing do, but our money doesn’t,” Dazelle said, adding that it costs almost $100,000 to pave one and half inches for a mile of blacktop.
Dazelle said they also hope to mill and fill from the bottom Skyline Drive to the Chester line and start drainage work on Goss Hill Road from the Littleville Dam on up.