Waterloo Times

The Cedar Falls City Council recently approved a capital improvements contract even though the single bid was much higher than estimated.

Peterson Contractors submitted a bid of $29.997 million for the Main Street reconstruction project. This was a significant increase from the city engineer’s original estimate, due to supply chain and labor shortage issues, as well as the national inflation levels. 

The city has already about $1 million into this project between design costs and easements, and secured $6 million in federal funding and grants to apply to the project if they did it now, but could not get if they pushed it back. There was some public comment on this issue, with residents equally supportive and opposed. The council did vote in favor of accepting the bid for the project.

"Really quickly, there's no right or wrong here," councilman Simon Harding said. "I don't feel like it's a more conservative versus more aggressive side. I use the term gamble and I don't want people to think like, oh, I'm just I'm gambling. Main Street is in disrepair, it needs to be fixed. We need an upgrade there. I can understand people wanting to be conservative with this. But I want to make sure that we have that water main and that infrastructure for our citizens."

A large portion of the project, almost $14 million, is underground utility replacements, including water mains and sewers that have to get done because they are around 120 years old, so it would be difficult to eliminate or change anything to lower the cost.

The road itself also needs to be repaved. The council considered pushing this project back a few years to stop themselves from overspending, however there does not seem to be a plateau or decrease anytime in the near future for these types of costs and projects.