Because the cost to put in decorative sidewalks and a crosswalk has tripled in the past six months, the City Council voted Wednesday, April 6, to pay only for the crosswalk.
Last September, the City Council agreed to spend $30,814 to put in the decorative concrete crosswalk and sidewalks to go along with the resurfacing of U.S. Highway 441 that the Florida Department of Transportation will do later this year.
However, when DOT put the project out to bid, the city’s cost for the decorative sidewalks and crosswalk ballooned to $92,253, more than triple what the city had already paid DOT.
Now, after the City Council agreed to go with the decorative crosswalk only, it will cost an additional $34,745. That crosswalk will be put in at the intersection of U.S. 441 and Central Avenue, which is the eastern terminus of the DOT project that also has gone up by 50 percent to $3 million from the original $2 million estimate last year.
Pam Richmond, the city’s traffic coordinator, told the City Council about the tripling in price for the city’s part of the road improvement project and originally recommended that the city do only the decorative sidewalks, but Commissioner Kyle Becker said he liked the idea of paying for the crosswalk rather than the sidewalk.
“The crosswalk at McGee looks a lot nicer than those pink stamped-concrete sidewalks,” Becker said.
The crosswalk will be put down by Hubbard Construction Company, which is based in Apopka.
Council members discussed with Richmond the idea of hiring another firm to do the crosswalk only, but that would have likely saved only a few dollars, she said.
The decorative crosswalk is stamped concrete that is put on top of the resurfaced roadway and if the city hired another contractor to do that, it would have to be completed after Hubbard was finished with its DOT project.
Richmond said that she expects Hubbard to begin the resurfacing project in June. The project will also include new medians and turn areas. The construction is scheduled to be completed in November.
To find out what else happened at the April 6, 2022, Apopka City Council meeting, read the Friday, April 8, issue of The Apopka Chief. Subscribe today!
The Apopka Chief and The Planter are weekly community newspapers, independently owned and family operated, that have served the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923 and 1965 respectively.
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