The Regional Transportation Commission on Wednesday approved Sierra Nevada Construction as the low bidder, at $686,007, for Carson City street-maintenance work.
The bid was more than $140,000 below the city’s estimate for slurry seal work and micro-paving at several locations. Among them are Fairview Drive from Carson Street to Edmunds Drive, King Street from Division Street to Ormsby Boulevard, Longview Drive from King Street to Ash Canyon Road, and Butti Way from Airport Road to Fifth Street.
The project consists of placing about 2,882 tons of type 2 slurry seal and about 1,246 tons of type 3 micro-paving surface, as well as removing existing pavement striping and symbols and replacing them after the slurry and paving work is done.
RTC members questioned the lowness of the bid, but Transportation Manager Patrick Pittenger and other staffers assured them the project would be handled soundly. Charles DesJardins, one of the members, said such a low bid might raise a red flag, but he knew Sierra Nevada Construction had done work for the city before and presumably would want to do more in the future.
In the end, the RTC approved the bid and awarded the firm the contract without dissent.
The commission also approved the lowest responsive and responsible bid of $119,760.26 from Intermountain Slurry Seal and awarded it the contract for Carson City’s 2013 long-line-striping program. The project involves more than 1.1 million feet of painted pavement markings and other matters.
Pittenger said Intermountain had been one of the unsuccessful bidders on the street-maintenance work project.