by April Scheinoha
Reporter

It’s a little bit more spendy than Pennington County leaders expected, but County Board accepted the low bid for the replacement of the Kratka bridge at its meeting Tuesday, Oct. 24.

Commissioners accepted the low bid of $2,783,327.90 from Redstone Construction LLC. Swingen Construction had the other bid of $3,883,762.

County Engineer Mike Flaagan said the low bid was 21.2% higher than the engineer’s estimate of $2,296,401.50. Five items made up the majority of the cost difference – the common embankment, removal of the existing bridge, mobilization, foundation prep work, and pre-stress concrete beams. The manufacturer sets the price of the beams.

The bidding market is volatile, said Flaagan, who noted county leaders didn’t want to see such a high bid, but it wasn’t a big surprise.

Commissioners asked about the possibility of rejecting all bids and rebidding the project. If the county were to rebid the project, Flaagan said the only movement would probably be in terms of mobilization costs. He said the county decided to bid the project now in order for the bridge to be finished in time for harvest in 2024.

Redstone Construction is set to start working on the project next month. The project will be covered with bridge bonding and state aid funds. The County State Aid Highway 22 bridge is expected to be completed in July.

As part of the county’s Five-Year Road and Bridge Plan, the county plans to mill and overlay CSAH 22 from CSAH 3 to Marshall County in 2025.