The winning bid for the Warsaw Municipal Airport taxiway E-1 rehabilitation project came in $371,977 less than the engineer’s estimate.
At their meeting Tuesday evening, the Board of Aviation Commissioners awarded the project bid to Phend & Brown, Milford, for $1,242,513.
The engineer’s estimate was $1,614,490, according to Nathan Lienhart, aviation project manager for CHA, the airport’s engineering consulting firm. The other bid from Brooks Construction, Fort Wayne, was $1,699,779, or $457,266 more than the bid from Phend & Brown.
Lienhart said, “We went through the public bidding process starting back in late February, with the bid opening in mid-March. We received two bids for the project, and we’re looking at the apparent low bidder as Phend & Brown. Their bid proposal was found to be responsive and responsible and in accordance with the bidding requirements and the contract documents. And it was within the overall budget that was allocated with the state grant that’s in play for this work.”
He said Airport Manager Nick King and his team have been working with the Indiana Department of Transportation’s (INDOT’s) office of aviation to finalize the descriptions that go into the $2 million state grant.
The board then approved awarding the bid to and entering into an agreement with Phend & Brown, as recommended by Lienhart, on contingency of the receipt of the state grant for the taxi lane E-1 project.
Lienhart then presented the board with task order no. 6 authorization of extra work by CHA for the E-1 project. The extra work includes administration, observation and material testing. The amount for the task order is an extra $214,956, bringing task order no. 6’s total value to $386,180, which Lienhart said was all part of the state grant that’s in place.
Board President Jay Rigdon asked, “Is that mean that the grant required more work than was originally anticipated? How much work ... and, if so, why so much extra work?”
Lienhart answered, “This is more or less the natural progression. We typically try to hold back on developing construction services ahead of having the design complete just so we know specifically what the duration of the contract time needs to be based on the design. What extent of quantity is there for testing purposes, things along those lines.”
He said when they submitted the estimate for the project to the state, it included divisions of work, but CHA “didn’t have it specifically under contract until we got the design and the bid completed.”
The board approved the increased amount unanimously.
The third and final item was on the design and bidding services for the E-1 project. CHA’s invoice was for $12,172.25, which is completely state funded so there is no local share. The board “enthusiastically” approved the invoice.
The board also heard from Lienhart that the runway 27 obstruction mitigation (power line lowering) project is moving forward, but AEP did hit a little bit of a snag with the schedule.
“They’ve been working with IDNR (Indiana Department of Natural Resources) to get access and procure an easement for some tree removals, and the reaction from IDNR pushed them beyond the April 1 deadline for the Indiana bat season, so consequently what that meant was that they could either pursue a bat study, or they could wait and delay the outage a month, which means moving from September to October, and by doing that, it saves the cost and effort of going through a bat study, and we still result in a fourth quarter ’24 completion date, which ultimately that’s when we were anticipating from the early onset,” he explained.
On the upside, Lienhart said they will save a little money and avoid the hassle of going through a bat study.
“We’ve still been a squeaky wheel with AEP on costs. Trying to stay ahead of that as it relates to the grant to make sure we’re staying in step with that,” he said. “They’re looking to go out to bid for the remainder of their vendors and contractors that are going to be doing the work.”
In the coming weeks, he said they’re expecting that AEP will be in the midst of finalizing their bids.
“I would say that probably by this time in May that we should start to see some numbers come in and we can have a better discussion and update to the board,” Lienhart stated.
He then presented an invoice from CHA for task order no. 2 for $2,592.09. Of that, $129.61 is the local share, with the remainder being federal ($2,332.88) and state ($129.60). The board approved the invoice.
The AEP power line lowering project has been talked about for decades, and will cost over $7 million. The project involves altering power lines east of the airport’s east-west runway. The FAA is paying for 90% of the project, the state is paying 5% and the airport is paying for the remaining 5%.
In other business, the board approved an invoice from CHA for $13,610 for work on the runway 9-27 safety area, also known as the RSA (runway safety area) study.
Lienhart said CHA is in the midst of wrapping up two components, one is the RSA study and the other is the forecast. He said those will be concluded at the end of this week.
“These versions incorporate a combination of FAA and INDOT, as well as some coordination with Nick and our team to finalize. This will be going back to the FAA and INDOT early next week for their final review,” he said.
The next steps, after the components have been resubmitted, is CHA will set up an in-person meeting, he said.