Bogard extension ready; money's the question

PALMER — If it can find the $42 million needed, the borough says it could be ready to break ground on the project to extend Bogard Road this summer.

Jim Rowland, the borough's project manager for the Bogard extension, said that so far the borough has bought six homes it needs to remove to push the road through. The borough has spent about $2 million on rights-of-way thus far and expect to spend that much more.

“Right now the estimate for all the right-of-way is just over $4 million,” he said.

Still left to be assessed and purchased are 30 of what the borough refers to as “partial takes.”

“You're taking enough that you need to acquire some (land) but you're not taking enough that it makes the property unusable,” Rowland said.

When the borough began working on the project, it had $12.5 million allotted to it. That money was for design work and right-of-way acquisition. So far, Rowland said, the borough has a little more than $7 million of it left. The designs and cost estimates are 95 percent complete.

The extension project was the subject of weeks and weeks of heated discussions in February of last year as nearby homeowners came to the borough to express their concerns. Most didn't want to see a high-volume road going through their neighborhood.

The borough assembly was presented with a number of alternatives and eventually settled on the most direct route. The extension will run from the road's terminus just past N. 49th State Street all the way to Palmer.

Borough employees and contractors working on the project came before the assembly Tuesday to present the plans as they've been conceived thus far. The road will have pedestrian pathways and, for part of its length, a raised median. The speed limit will be 35 mph past Palmer High School and 45 after that. There are plans to put up fencing and some kind of pedestrian crosswalk under or over the road at Colony High School, which planners hope will eliminate that school zone.

Tuesday, the assembly was also presented a change order from the staff working on the project asking for permission to spend $685,000 more to finish up the plans.

But the assembly chose to delay its vote until Dec. 15. Assemblyman Jim Colver said he's wary about projects that have multiple change orders.

“I'm just concerned that when you have these large budgets they tend to sit on these projects, eat up the budget and come back for more,” Colver said.

Assemblyman Mark Ewing got the staff's assurance that this would be the last change order submitted for the pre-construction phase.

Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine said she would put together a list of things she'd like to see when the staff comes back for the Dec. 15 meeting. She urged her assembly colleagues to do the same.

The borough's transportation and environmental manager, Brad Sworts, said that when all is said and done the pre-construction costs minus the cost of buying the land will be something on the order of $4.2 million. In construction circles, he said, it's pretty well established that design and other preparatory work usually costs about 10 percent of the cost of construction.

Which, given that the extension is set to cost $42 million, means the borough is right where it needs to be where cost is concerned.

Of course the borough doesn’t have anything like $42 million on hand. It remains to be seen where that money will come from — whether the state or federal governments will be so generous. But once the money is on hand, Sworts said, the borough will be ready.

“We could start on it next summer,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.