County will consider bids on bridge at Crooked Creek

The Pettis County Commission this week opened bids from nine companies across the state for a project that will replace a bridge over Crooked Creek.

The project includes the construction of a 54 1/2-foot long, single-span steel beam bridge and appurtenances over Crooked Creek on Wells Road, west of Green Ridge.

Road and Bridge Superintendent Bill Connor said the existing bridge at that location is in poor condition and offset at an unusual angle, so replacing it rather than repairing it will provide a cheaper, more long-term fix for the bridge.

“It’s one of those where any rehabilitation would have been more expensive than replacing it,” Connor said.

Consulting engineers from Lenexa, Kan.-based Shafer, Kline & Warren estimated the cost of the project at $263,940.50. Of the nine bids the county received, two companies bid for a more expensive contract than the engineers estimated, while the other seven came in lower than expected.

“There was such a wide and varied range (of prices) that the engineers are going to have to go over the low bids before making recommendations,” Connor said.

Companies from Kearney, Blackwater, Pilot Grove, Brookfield, Columbia, California and Kansas City submitted bids ranging from $166,625.37 to $348,200. L.G. Barcus, of Kansas City, submitted the highest bid, while the lowest came from Streck Construction, of Pilot Grove.

“We had some really good bids in there,” Presiding Commissioner Rusty Kahrs said. “Of course, the engineers have to go through them to make sure everything is covered in each proposal.”

Western Commissioner Larry Wilson said most of the cost for the bridge replacement will be covered with federal dollars through the state’s Off-System Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation program. 

After reviewing the contract the county awards for the project, the Missouri Department of Transportation will allocate federal money to cover 80 percent of the bill. MoDOT will then release the remaining 20 percent of the funding from the county’s soft-match reserves, Wilson said. The county accrues soft-match credit when it pays for smaller, new construction projects in the county.

“

We’ve been trying to use it. We’ve built a lot of bridges here in the last 10 or 12 years and built that up,” Wilson said.

Although no target start or completion date was set in the bid specifications for the project, Connor said crews will likely begin replacing the bridge about a month after the contract is awarded.