Machesney Park gets rolling on 2017 road improvements

By Bob Balgemann

REPORTER

Summer isn’t over yet and already the village is getting a head start on two major road projects, totaling an estimated $1.380 million, for next year.

Here they are:

Rebuild the East Service Drive of Illinois 251 to a curb and gutter standard between Harlem Court and CVS Pharmacy.
Alpine Road pavement reclamation along with improvements to the Burden/Alpine, Burden/Martin and Martin/ 251 West Service Road intersections.

Project No. 2 has two primary purposes. One is to reclaim the pavement along Alpine Road, between Gateway Drive and Burden Road, and then provide a new driving surface. The other is to widen the intersections of Burden and Alpine roads; Burden and Martin Drive; and at Martin and the 251 West Service Drive.

The village’s public improvements and safety committee (PISC) on Aug. 15 recommended approval of the following engineering costs for those projects.

Village Engineer Chris Dopkins explained the design, bid and construction engineering process would take about 1,575 manhours to complete. The breakdown is as follows:

* 251 East Service Drive, total project cost of $775,000. Design bid engineering would run $46,923, with construction engineering costing about $50,765. That total represents 12.5 percent of the project’s estimated cost.

* Alpine Road improvements, total project cost of $605,000. Design bid engineering would be $36,913; construction engineering cost would be about $34,557. That total represents 11.8 percent of the project’s estimated cost.

Dopkins explained it this way:

“Generally, engineering costs are between 12-25 percent of project costs, depending on the size nad scope of the project. Lower cost projects tend to have higher engineering costs on a percentage basis, because there are a certain number of activities that every project requires. And these activities tend to take a higher percentage of the project’s budget on lower value projects.”

The PISC recommendation is expected to be considered by the full village board at its Sept. 8 meeting.

Meanwhile, Dopkins said, “We will begin field surveys after approval of the contracts (and perhaps even before board approval) and will have plans ready for public bid by the end of February (2017), if not before.”

He said it’s anticipated that bids would be awarded either in mid-March or early April, with construction beginning on or about May 1 “so that the projects time well into the village’s fiscal year.”