City officials again seek proposals for V&M project

By David Skolnick | May 10, 2011 at 12:06a.m.

RAIL, SEWER WORK WOULD START IN MID- TO LATE JULY

YOUNGSTOWN

City officials will try for the third time to find a qualified company to handle a major railroad construction and relocation project needed for V&M Star’s $650 million expansion.

The city began advertising today for the work with proposals to be opened at noon June 10. If all goes well, the work on the project would start in mid- to late July, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

“The third time’s the charm, they say,” Shasho quipped.

The project will take about 300 days to complete, and was originally planned to be done in time for the V&M expansion project, which will be finished in December.

But Shasho and V&M officials say the rail project no longer needs to be finished that early.

“It won’t impact their operations,” Shasho said.

The city project consists of building and relocating railroad lines and installing storm-sewer lines with about $14.4 million from the federal stimulus package.

“The scope of the project hasn’t changed,” Shasho said. “It’s pretty much stayed the same,” except there are a few portions of the rail line that will be raised by about 5 feet.

The city rejected four proposals for this work in June 2010. The project’s original estimate was $13.56 million, but the proposals ranged from $18.18 million to $20.21 million.

After almost four months of talks with V&M, the state rail commission, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, the city changed the project’s scope and opened proposals Oct. 19.

The city reduced the base proposal to $11.35 million and included about $3 million in add-ons for the project. Four of the six proposals for the revised work were lower than the $14.4 million project cost estimate.

But the city rejected all six Nov. 10 because the apparent low proposal of $14,339,389.10 failed to include a cost for two gate-crossing signals, and two contractors threatened to file lawsuits against the city over the bidding process.

Despite the setbacks, Shasho said Monday: “I’m confident we’ll get some good proposals.”

With all of the contractors at the V&M expansion site, the delays turned out to be beneficial, he said.

“There would have been some construction coordination issues because of the sheer number of construction companies on-site,” Shasho said.