Bloomington’s three-member board of public works voted at its regular Tuesday meeting to reject the sole bid for a major infrastructure project at the site of the former IU Health hospital, now known as the Hopewell neighborhood.
The $13.5 million bid, from Milestone Contractors, was about 30 percent higher than the engineer’s estimate.
The area for the project is bounded by 2nd Street to the north, 1st Street to the south, The B-Line Trail to the east, and Rogers Street to the west. It’s called Phase 1 East in the master plan for the development of the site.
The demolition phase for Phase 1 East is complete. The rejected bid was for installing utilities, constructing streets, landscaping and bicycle-pedestrian facilities.
The project will now be re-bid, after the city’s staff reviews the package for items that could be modified or deleted from the current plan. “When we re-bid it, hopefully there would be a reduction in the cost there,” said engineering department project manager Matt Smethurst at the board’s Monday work session. Continue reading “Public works notebook: Sole $13M bid on Hopewell infra rejected, 4 maintenance of traffic plans OK’d”