Council to reject lone bid on Charley Western Trail Bridge project

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Charles City will have to wait a little longer to replace the Charley Western Trail Bridge after the City Council unofficially agreed to turn down the only bid for the project.

The bridge project, estimated at $1.2 million, had been proposed to be completed by late summer.

But at a workshop meeting Monday, council members tentatively agreed to open the project up for bids again after receiving just one bid, for $1.6 million, from Ida Grove company Godbersen-Smith.

The bid to build the 349-foot long three-span recreational bridge came in 33% higher than the estimate.

City Engineer John Fallis said the city is now looking to let bids on the Iowa Department of Transportation project sometime in May.

Fallis said work could begin sometime in the winter of 2020-2021 with a potential completion date of September or October of 2021.

“It won’t affect our funding at all,” he said.

Charles City has secured $330,000 in federal TAP (Transportation Alternative Program) funding to go toward the new bridge.

The council can’t take official action on the project until its next regular meeting, Feb. 3.

Council members also tentatively decided the city will not go ahead with a proposed amended ordinance to require off-street parking lots be paved.

Instead, Fallis said, sometime next month or in March, the city will look to retain a consultant to do a full zoning ordinance rewrite.

The city requires all off-street parking areas adjacent to arterial or minor arterial streets to be paved with concrete or hot asphalt. Safety, functionality and aesthetic reasons are the driving forces behind the current code.

The city has granted temporary parking waivers for Simply Essentials, Mills Inc., Cedar Valley Auction, Bread of Life and Unggoy. Each temporary waiver request to the city was reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The proposed amendment to the ordinance would require either hard surface pavement, Portland cement concrete, hot mix asphalt or permeable pavement for a distance of 38 feet from the right-of-way line. The current ordinance already stipulates a 10-foot setback from the right of way, which would mean the change in policy on the new ordinance would be an additional 28 feet.

The city and Planning & Zoning Commission sat down with Cedar Valley Auction owner Jerry Hegtvedt recently to discuss a compromise on the city ordinance that would be less restrictive. Fallis said Hegtvedt concurred with the changes.

“We’re going to work with Jerry with what we already discussed,” said Fallis. “We’ll ask him how he wants to proceed.”

Once the new ordinance is amended, Mills Inc. and Unggoy’s parking areas could be addressed once their waiver expires.

The waivers for Bread of Life and Simply Essentials are terminated because the businesses are no longer in operation at those addresses after the Bread of Life closes next month.

A project to construct new windows and an entryway door at the building at 401 N. Main was again discussed. The building houses the Charles City Chamber of Commerce, Area Development Corp. and the Community Revite group.

The remodel will feature an upgraded new vestibule that will incorporate a visitor’s information center open 24 hours a day for visitors to pick up pamphlets about Charles City.

No bids were received on the $51,000 project when it was released for bid in early 2019. The city is looking to negotiate with a new contractor to get the project finished.

“I would like to think for something like this that spring of 2021 would be enough time to get it done,” said City Administrator Steve Diers.

Mark Wicks, community development director, said he would prefer to not have the project done during the middle of the summer when Party in the Park and Fourth of July activities take place.

“They’re going to do it when they’re able to do it, but it’d be awful nice if they didn’t do it between June and early August. Just because that’s the height of the activity going on there,” said Wicks.

The council also discussed the 2020 hot mix asphalt project that will involve overlaying and reconstructing pavement on Clinton, Cedar, South Jackson and Second streets in town.

The project will remove and replace deteriorated curb and gutter along those streets, construct new storm sewers and intakes, as well as place a leveling surface to improve rideability on the overlay streets.

Two add alternates on the project are resurfacing a portion of the Charles City Public Library parking lot and a hot mix asphalt overlay on the Sportsmen’s Park tennis courts.

Diers said that Doug Johnson has been hired as the watershed coordinator to oversee a water quality monitoring sponsored project in conjunction with the city and the Floyd County Soil and Water Conservation District.

A new seven-lot subdivision on the south side of 195th Street in Charles City was discussed. At Monday’s Feb. 3 regular meeting council members will vote on approving the platted area.