More construction slated for downtown

Public Works Director Rob Miller received the Sebring City Council's blessing Tuesday for two change orders to allow installation of new pole lights around the Circle and extending Streetscape IX construction down North Ridgewood Drive to Pine Street.

The cuncil approved the change orders 3-0. Councilmen Bud Whitlock and John Clark were absent.

This is still being paid from about $1 million obtained from the Department of Community Affairs, Miller said Thursday.

"Bids (on the Streetscape IX project) just came in a lot lower than we expected," said Miller. "We spent about $360,000-plus, and I have $630,000 left of that DCA money, so all of the extension money is coming from that."

The project was designed during the boom time, but construction costs were projected a lot higher.

"They don't want to give money back; they want to spend that money because the whole point of using that money is to get it out into the economy, to get things rolling to put local people to work," he said. "So they want to get that money spent."

The reason the change orders are necessary is because when the original project was created, it included going down to Pine Street, but they said the city wouldn't have enough money to go down to Pine, he said.

The change order will use up $146,681.57 and extends the contract time for Excavation Point by 90 days.

After the actual construction costs came in, they realized they had a lot of money left over to complete the project, he said.

"DCA needs an official change order to do that," he said. "The engineer has to sign it, the contractor has to sign it and I have to sign it and then we have to attach the council action to it and send it all off to DCA so they can approve it."

Miller said he is hoping to get it started in a couple of weeks.

The project entails brick pavers, more antique lights, pattern-textured crosswalks and landscaping features. They will not be redoing curb and gutter, he said.

Miller is looking into getting some areas where bicycle racks can be installed. There will be milling and resurfacing from Wall Street to Mango Street, he said.

"This is going to be a fast-moving project," he said. "The disruption to the businesses should be minor."

Tall street lights

The second change order is for new corner pole street lighting on the Circle, and will cost $114,305.47. It grants the contractor an extra 60 days for completion.

"Part of the problem is up on the Circle; the street lights; we're looking at a 14-week lead time from the manufacturer," he said. "I think it's crazy. I don't know if they're sending them by slow boat… Wherever they're sending them from it shouldn't take 14 to 16 weeks for light poles."

They will replace six of the 30-foot gray-steel poles on each spoke on the Circle, with a 30-foot, black-painted steel, antique-style decorative lights with overhanging fixture, approved by the Florida Department of Transportation. The poles will also hold illuminated street name signs that are lit from the inside, he said.

"These lights are designed to give us better coverage, so we shouldn't have to have any additional floodlights downtown," Miller told the city council.

Circle still due for repaving

The company that repaved the Circle but did not do it to the city's satisfaction was named Roadway Management. It has been bought out by Hubbard Construction, said Miller.

Hubbard inherited the problem, he said.

The city is still waiting on an engineering report to decide what needs to be done to correct the issues at hand.

"I've been riding them pretty hard," Miller said. "And I feel almost bad for them because they're not the ones who created the problem, but they're the ones stuck trying to fix it. We're making progress, so it's coming."