Holmes prepares for another year of county road paving
As you can see by the wear and tear of County Road 192 near Holmesville, it was a fine choice to be part of the 2024 Holmes County paving project being put forth by the Holmes County Engineer’s Office. This and several other county roads will get a make-over this summer and fall.
On Monday, April 15, the Holmes County commissioners proceeded with the bid opening submissions for the upcoming 2024 0.25% Sales Tax County Road Paving Project.
Corey Baker, assistant county engineer for the Holmes County Engineer’s Office, read off the submitted bids for a countywide repaving project that began in 2017 when the county went to the people of Holmes County to ask for support of the project that would ensure the county’s roads would be well maintained.
The initial proposal was for a five-year term, which was well received and completed in 2022.
Last year the county went back on the ballot to ask for a second five-year tax levy, and the public overwhelmingly supported it.
Baker said that is a telling sign that the people of Holmes County want to maintain quality roads, both for themselves and for the major tourism industry.
“We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback, and it’s been a worthwhile effort,” Baker said.
Two potential suitors submitted bids to earn the right to take on the Holmes County roadway resurfacing project.
The coming resurfacing project was bid out in four segments.
The first was for the base project, which will resurface and repair several county roads covering approximately 32 miles of roadway including County Roads 19, 23, 35, 61, 192, 400 and 558.
Alternate bid one was for work on the north portion of County Road 201. Alternate bid two was for work on County Road 373, and alternate bid three was for County Road 672.
“The engineer’s office bids out the project with alternate bids in case the cost of resurfacing runs higher than expected.
Melway Paving of Holmesville, which did the previous work on the project, submitted a base bid of $2,510,070.30, with $499,524.80 for alternate bid one, $257,370.90 for alternate bid two and $91,209.40 for alternate bid three.
Karvo Companies in Hudson submitted respective bids of $3,125,000, $607,376.20, $317,218 and $113,732.80.
The engineer’s estimate for each project were $2,653,000, $507,000, $261,000 and $83,000.
Baker said the engineer’s office will now go back and review each submission to make sure they qualify, before giving their recommendation to the commissioners.
In addition, the county also bid out the striping project that would complete the painting portion of work on the roads.
The bidding on HOL VAR PM phase four was for the right to stripe the county roads being worked on, which would include both center and edge lines on all county roads in the resurfacing project.
Oglesby Construction out of Norwalk came in with a bid of $204,913.50, Arrow Mark Company out of Streetsboro submitted a bid of $255,501 and American Roadway Logistics from Richfield sent in a bid of $299,159.50.
All three bids fell under the engineer office’s estimated cost of $301,301.60.
According to Baker, the engineer’s office has already secured a federal grant of $250,000, which will nearly perfectly cover the cost of the striping project.
“We may add another road, but for now it seems as though the grant will cover the cost,” Baker said.
“According to this, if we use the lowest bids, it appears that all of the alternate projects will get done,” commissioner Joe Miller said.
The potential road work will be funded by the tax levy and will be based on sales tax revenue generated in the county.
“So far in the past years, we’ve been lucky to be able to do everything we wanted to do because we’ve had funds available,” Baker said.