The world may have been put on pause when communities braced for the impact of the spread of COVID-19, but Plant City leaders want the public to know they are still working hard to secure the city’s future.
Part of that effort came during last week’s city commission meeting when commissioners agreed to solidify a contract with Dallas 1 Corporation for $4,149,787.17 to finally extend utilities out to State Road 39. In January 2019, the commission had a choice on how far it wanted to extend utilities to SR 39. Commissioners chose to go approximately 1.71 miles to Colson Road. The estimate of the project was a little over $3 million.
During the project design, consideration was made to include a utilities crossing to allow service to both sides of SR 39. The city decided to present the project with a base bid and an alternate bid that would cover the different construction requirements.
When the bids came back, the base bid had an apparent low bid of $3,656,307.37. The alternate bid had an apparent low bid of $493,479.80. The alternate bid comes with an addition of utility crossings to the west side of SR 39 to provide the ability to connect utilities on both sides of the road. The city stated rising construction labor costs, material costs and the contractors’ volume of work as the reasons for the bids being higher than estimated. The two bids go just over $4 million combined.
The total cost increase was $1,861,623. For the SR 39 project, the commission decided to combine the $1 million currently left over from the Sam Allen Road project and $450,000 from the Water Systems Improvements for a project on Franklin Street that was not needed at that time. They also will use $411,623 from reserves in the water/sewer fund for the remaining costs.
“We did a lot of thought and checking, and in my mind I had to weigh a couple of things: What would be the impact and was it something we wanted to do?” City Manager Bill McDaniel said. “I think of it like planting a crop. If you don’t plant the seed, you won’t see the corn down the road… We need to plant the seed. We had everything in place, we had the funds to do it, so we need to invest in Plant City.”
Despite COVID-19 causing many businesses to come to a screeching halt, construction has continued to flourish. McDaniel said the state and other government agencies have been looking at their capital reserves and decided now was the time to invest. Plant City is doing the same thing.
He and several of the commissioners last week said it was part of the city’s overall economic strategy.
There are three things that will come from the project. First are the transit jobs that come with the construction that will come from the utility expansion. Then the permanent jobs that follow with the commercial and retail spaces expected to quickly fill the area. The city then expects to see some interest in residential development near the area.
Hoping to make SR 39 another County Line Road, commissioners agreed it was the right time for the project to come to life. While they admitted the odds of the vast construction and near-immediate turn around on the city’s investment like they had on County Line is more than likely not going to occur, they still believe there will be heavy interest.
Now that the bid was approved, the contractor is expected to start in May and will look for a first quarter of 2021 completion date.