City aims to maximize bids for sidewalk work

The city of Springfield constructed 15,000 feet of new sidewalks in 2023.

The coordinated sidewalk project, creating nearly three miles of new walkways in the city, was the highlight of the Department of Public Works’ annual transportation project update, given this month at the Transportation Management Center of the Ozarks as part of the Springfield City Council’s Tuesday luncheon series.

Through the coordinated approach, in place for three years now, sidewalk projects are put up for bid in a set of three or four groups, awarded as a set to the successful bidder. City Traffic Engineer Brett Foster said this approach has made the projects more appealing to contractors, boosting the interest in the sidewalk projects.

At work in the city now is Liming Concrete LLC, which was granted a contract last October to build new sidewalks where gaps existed and complete repairs in areas of Zones 3 and 4. Liming Concrete submitted the low bid out of eight bids received, coming in at $583,000.

Don Liming, owner of Liming Concrete, said he has done quite a bit of sidewalk work for Springfield – 52 miles in the last 13 years. He noted more companies submit bids now that larger contracts are available in the city.

“When it comes to the projects themselves, my experience with Springfield has always been good,” he said. “They’re on top of things.”

Lots of work available
In an interview after the update meeting, Foster said there is plenty of sidewalk work to do in the city.

“We have over $100 million of delinquent sidewalk that needs repairs, so we have to be pretty strategic,” he said.

Foster came to the city from a position as resident engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile, and became Springfield’s Traffic Engineer in 2020. When he started, he said, sidewalk projects were handled as a series of small contracts, $200,000-$300,000 at a time.

“I saw we weren’t having good luck getting very many bidders,” he said. “Then COVID came around, and we really had trouble with those small little contracts.”

In 2022, the economy turned around and contractors got busy, he said – and that made it even harder to entice them with smaller projects, especially for sidewalk projects, which don’t offer as much profit margin.

Foster said he received feedback, both formally and informally, from the contractor community, and changed the city’s approach as a result.

“We took those smaller amounts of money and grouped them into a large contract, as high as $2.3 million,” he said, adding the smallest contract offered since then has been around $700,000.

As an added enticement, the city has offered a longer timeline for contractors to finish the work – typically 18 months.

“There’s really only 5-6 months of work to actually do, so they have flexibility for when they start and stop,” he said.

One caveat is that if contractors start working in an area, they have to finish that section in a reasonable amount of time so that the project doesn’t inconvenience residents for a long stretch.

Many contractors are tied up in other work, Foster said, and while they may have been willing to do a project in the past, it may not have been clear when they could fit it into their timelines.

With the current system, they can work it into their schedules, he said.

“When you give contractors that kind of flexibility, more of them are able to do the work, and you get more bidders, which usually means better pricing,” he said. “We’ve seen really good success.”

Previously bid winners for sidewalk work includes KCI Construction Co., which was selected in 2022 from among four bidders for sidewalk improvements in Zone 1 with a low bid of just over $2 million. That same year, Liming Concrete was the successful bidder from among six submitted for improvements in Zone 2 at just under $1 million.

Accommodating contractors
Director of Public Works Dan Smith said he is pleased with the number of bidders the city is getting for its annual sidewalk work.

“Going back a few years, we went through a really rough spot, but more recently, for the most part, we’ve been getting several bidders, which is great,” he said.

Foster said the last two sidewalk projects have all had multiple bidders, most recently eight.

“That’s a good bidding pool,” he said. “That’s what we like to see.”

Additionally, he said, although sidewalk projects are generally low risk, the city tries to mitigate those for contractors. An example is inclement weather.

“We’ve taken care of that by giving them a longer timeline,” he said.

For other issues, like the discovery of buried utility lines in unexpected locations or a sudden sinkhole, there is enough sidewalk work in the city to shift the project to another location.

“We don’t hold a contractor on-site and make them wait while we get a sinkhole filled,” he said. “We have $100 million of sidewalk need; it’s not like we can’t find someplace else for them to work.”

In the past, bids specified a certain amount of sidewalk work; now, bidders know exactly where the work will be. This, too, helps them to mitigate risk, Foster said.

“They can bid for exactly what they see,” he said.

Foster said the bidding process is not tailored only for large contractors.

“We tried to make it large enough to attract large contractors, but small enough so small contractors can be competitive,” he said. “We want to keep the entire market as viable as we can.”

Foster said from the city’s perspective, the more contractors and the more good contractors that are in business, the better it is for everyone.

“There are a lot of people in town who can do really good sidewalk work,” he said. “There’s a sweet spot in there with a dollar amount that can attract more bidders, but smaller folks can afford to bond and bid the project, too.”

In his presentation to council, Foster noted this year’s sidewalk project is primarily in council Zones 1 and 2.

“We do try to rotate throughout the city to spread that around,” he said.

The current project includes a lot of rehab, he said, with the goal of fixing existing sidewalks to meet standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act and make them more walkable.

“At the end of the day, when this is done, we’ll have built about 2,500 linear foot of sidewalk and brought about 43,000 foot into compliance,” he said, adding that that’s about 8 miles of sidewalk.

“I do want to note, though, that we do have a 750-mile network of sidewalk,” he said, adding that while the current year’s project makes a substantial impact, there is still a lot of work to do.

Foster said the value of the city’s sidewalk as an asset is in the $350 million range. If even 1% fails in a year, that’s a number that far exceeds the city’s annual budget for sidewalk work.

Leveraging federal funding helps to supplement the city’s base-level funding, Foster said, but he added, “We don’t have enough money to truly make really significant progress compared to what’s failing.”

He said his department receives numerous calls for sidewalk repairs every month and is only able to do a fraction. This year’s 8 miles of sidewalk work amounts to only about 1% of the entire system.

Foster said much of the sidewalk work that is happening throughout the city is being done by MoDOT on major arterial roads that are its responsibility. Current work on Kearney Street and Kansas Expressway are two examples.

He also noted that when the city does an overlay on its roadways, it is required to bring a portion of the sidewalk up to ADA standards, making sure they are passable and removing barriers to access. This work is in addition to the annual sidewalk project.