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09/08/2015 01:30 PMIt may be another year before the town gets a new public parking lot to serve patrons of Main Street businesses and the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center. After a first round of bidding, the town has gone back to the drawing board.
If the bidding came in where town officials hoped it would, construction could have begun during this summer season. But it was not to be.
The town sought bids in June for work to build a new parking lot on the site of the former police station on Main Street, Phase 1 of the Main Street Connection Park. Phase 1 would also do some additional site work in support of Phase 2, the linear park connecting Main Street to Lynde Street. In the project’s future Phase 2, the work would focus on completing the park site work, planting trees and landscaping, and adding amenities like public benches.
When the town opened the project bids on July 1, there was both good news and bad news.
The good news was that the low bid for Phase 1 work was within the $500,000 Small Town Economic Assistance Program (STEAP) grant the town received.
The bad news was that when the cost of a project contingency and the cost to design and engineer the project were added to the low bid amount, the total was higher than the $500,000 state grant. So First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr. decided to reject this round of bids and seek more grant funds.
“The contractor’s references were favorable, but between the cost to design the park, the lack of ability to have a contingency, and the amount of the low bid, we think it’s prudent to seek additional contingency funds through grants,” said Fortuna. “So we will reject this round of bids and seek additional state grant funds.
In assessing the site in advance of the bids, the town also did some soil testing. A small area of the site had indications of some hydrocarbon pollutants in the soil, so having a project contingency fund to address site issues like this area is even more important.
“I don’t anticipate any problems, but we need to identify what is there and clean it up or plan to cap it,” said Fortuna.
“Right now, delaying implementation of the project and instead, seeking added grant funds to complete this first phase, is our plan,” said Fortuna. “I want to do this with state grant funds and you always need a project contingency. Right now, the amount of grant money won’t cover unforeseen problems for the contractor.”
Fortuna said he plans to apply for a second STEAP grant this year to complete both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Main Street Connection Park at the same time. The second STEAP grant request likely would be for an amount much less than that awarded for Phase 1 work.
If the town is awarded a second STEAP grant to complete the project budget, the town would solicit bids in 2016 for project work to start during that construction season. At that point, the town will be able to finalize design of the public park connection between Main Street and Lynde Street and between Main Street and the inland parcel between the planned Main Street parking lot and the rear of the new police station.
Last week, the town received good news that will improve options for making that connection pleasing and pedestrian-friendly.
After a year of working with Frontier Communications management and attorneys, the Town of Old Saybrook finally has secured an easement about five feet wide across Frontier’s land that lies to the north of the communications tower fence. Currently that fence is directly on top of the town’s property line, so without this easement, a pedestrian path could not be planned to the north of that tower fence.
The easement will allow the town to build a pedestrian connection between Main Street land where the parking lot will be built and the as-yet undeveloped public land between it and the rear of the police station site.
“Getting this easement across Frontier property allows an east-west liner park connection between Main and Lynde streets,” said Fortuna.