Thursday March 28th, 2024 8:02PM

Helen officials open sole bid for pedestrian bridge construction

HELEN — When Helen officials gathered at city hall Thursday to witness the opening of bids for the pedestrian bridge over the Chattahoochee River along Ga. 75 (Main Street), they learned only one firm submitted a bid.

They also learned that to comply with federal funding requirements, the project will cost $37,000 more that originally expected.

Square Deal Enterprises of Sautee submitted a bid of $623,022 to replace the bridge that connects the sidewalks in front of The Castle Inn with the sidewalk in front of Café International, and will mirror the existing bridge in front of Paul’s Steakhouse on the other side of the highway.

The city commission first awarded a bid for the project to Square Deal Enterprises during its June 6 meeting. That bid was for $586,022.

Three days later, the commission was forced to hold a called meeting because the low bid did not meet a federal requirement.

The work is being funded with federal Transportation Enhancement funds funneled through the Georgia Department of Transportation to the City of Helen, so that first bid was not accepted due to a provision requiring a certain percentage of the funded work to be funded by minority-owned or woman-owned business.

“The main purpose of rebidding it was because we received four bids on the pedestrian bridge project,” City Manager Jerry Elkins explained on June 9. “After review by the state of those bids, only one of those bids was qualified to meet the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise percentage of the project. That particular bid that did meet that was $270,000 higher than the low bid, so we had two choices. We could either accept that bid and pay the additional $270,000, or we could re-bid the project and hope to get competitive bids again.”

The commission chose to re-bid the project.

“We only had one bid submittal for the re-bid of the pedestrian bridge, and that was from Square Deal Enterprises, which was the low bidder in the beginning,” Elkins said Thursday.  “Now our engineer will take that bid back and analyze it, then it will be approved by the commission, then forwarded to GDOT for their approval of it also.”

The bid includes:

♦ Demolition of the existing concrete bridge;

♦ Construction of an approximately 157-foot pedestrian bridge, pilings, truss and associated appurtenances;

♦ Installation of four pedestrian lights, including associated electrical;

♦ Construction of about 200 square feet of brick pavers sidewalks;

♦ Construction of about 20 square yards of concrete sidewalk; and

♦ Replacement, relocation, and addition of existing stormwater structures and piping.

If the bid is approved by the city commission and Georgia Department of Transportation, work on replacement of the pedestrian bridge could begin in December.

 

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  • Associated Tags: GDOT, Georgia Department of Transportation, Helen City Commission, Alpine Helen, City Manager Jerry Elkins, Helen , pedestrian bridge
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