July 25, 2023 |
Photo – Spring Avenue Project Beginning Stage – Bigfoot99 file photo
After nearly a year of delays, Saratoga’s Spring Avenue water main replacement and repaving project is officially finished, and the paperwork signed.
In May of 2019, Saratoga residents voted to use the county’s 6th Penny Tax to fund seven projects within the town. Included on the list of town improvements was a plan to replace the existing water mains under Spring Avenue from Saratoga Elementary School to South River Street. The project’s original contracted price was bid at $2,105,653.
The contractor chosen for the job was Lewis and Lewis, a Rock Springs company specializing in paving. Lewis and Lewis was scheduled to begin work on July 18th of last year, but an unspecified three-week delay caused the start date to slip to mid-August. The project was expected to be completed by October 31st. A weeks-long struggle to drain the bore pit under Highway 130 in front of Town Hall, combined with the delayed start date put the contractor far behind schedule.
When the Halloween completion date was missed last year, a clause in the project’s contract caused daily fines, called liquidated damages, to begin being assessed against the contractor. Beginning on October 31st, $1,750 a day was taken from the town’s final payment to Lewis and Lewis. After winter set in, the contractor came to the town asking for the liquidated damages to stop until work could resume the following spring. The town council refused to pause the fines and the contractor left, vowing to return as soon as the weather would allow. Due to the unusually harsh winter, Lewis and Lewis could not restart the job until the last week of March.
Fast forward to last Tuesday’s Saratoga town council meeting. Josh Morris, the project manager of TO Engineering, announced the completion of the Spring Avenue waterline replacement project. TO Engineering is the firm responsible for designing the Spring Avenue project. Morris said the contractor had taken all the necessary steps to obtain final completion and was expecting to be paid.
To date, the town has withheld $94,250 in liquated damages. Morris suggested that the council refund all the liquidated damages not needed to cover what the town spent to maintain the incomplete project throughout the winter.
The five percent Morris referred to is called retainage. It is common practice for a contractor to leave a percentage of the final cost of a job as collateral should something go wrong within a certain timeframe, typically 45 days. Lewis and Lewis’s agreed upon retainage is $103,135.41.
Morris asked the council to determine how much of the liquated damages they intended to keep so he could bring that number to the contractor.
Mayor Chuck Davis said the town agreed to only keep what was actually spent after the project went past the expected completion date.
Mayor Davis said the town also repaired a water leak over the winter caused by the project not being completed on time. The cost of the repairs, the mayor said, was $4,800. Altogether, Mayor Davis said the town agreed to withhold nearly $66,000 of the $94,000 set aside in liquidated damages.
Mayor Davis asked Morris if the surety bond would remain in effect until the project’s warranty expired in one year. A surety bond is a type of insurance policy that protects the town if the contractor fails to complete the job as contracted. Morris said he didn’t think the bond would continue to apply with the job officially finished, but the engineer assured Mayor Davis that Lewis and Lewis would keep their word.
Mayor Davis said he didn’t expect any future issues with the contractor. The mayor asked for a motion to authorize the final payment to Lewis and Lewis, minus the $65,204.02 of liquidated damages.
Councilman Mike Cooley made the motion with Councilman Jacob Fluty seconding. The motion passed unanimously.
Following the vote, Mayor Davis instructed Morris to send the final payment notice to Lewis and Lewis for review.
