Bessemer hires contractors for water and sewer projects

By CHARITY SMITH

csmith@yourdailyglobe.com

Bessemer — The Bessemer City Council hired two local contractors for its water and sewer projects during a special meeting on Wednesday.

Jake’s Excavating and Landscaping LLC, of Ironwood, was awarded the contract for the city’s major water and sewer project, following the recommendation of its hire by C2AE Engineering, of Escanaba.

The company came in as the lowest of four bidders with a total bid of $14,525,949, coming in $193,124 cheaper than the second lowest bid received.

Ruotsala Concrete Construction was the lowest of three bidders for the city’s project to replace private water lead service pipes, with a bid of $455,586.

Both contracts were awarded in a 3-0 vote, with council members Linda Nelson and Bill McDonald absent from the meeting.

The water and sewer project calls for reconstructing much of the city’s aging water and sewer system, some of which is up to 100 years old.

The contract is the first project of this magnitude that Jake’s has undertaken, according to C2AE project manager Darren Pionk. However, he said the company has enough cumulative experience under its belt with other projects that he believes it is fully capable of handling the project.

“It is the biggest project that they have ever done. So hats off to them,” Pionk said.

Pionk said that he had to be unbiased during the selection process, but now that contractors have been selected he is very happy that they are locally based.

“It’s a local contractor. So that’s going to help support and feed businesses here, supports workers here. So that’s a good thing,” Pionk said.

Representatives from both Ruotsala and Jake’s were in attendance at the meeting. Zak congratulated Jake’s Excavating and told Ruotsala that there would be other projects the city would be having later on this summer and that he hopes they bid on those as well.

According to Pionk the project is running way ahead of schedule and said they might even be able to break ground earlier than anticipated. He said this is the fastest turnaround that C2AE has ever seen with a United States Department of Agriculture-Rural Development project.

“So typically when we approve the bid process, it usually is 60 to 90 days (afterward) to closing,” Pionk said. “It’s been a mad rush to get things in (to USDA) but whatever we can do to speed up the process that’s what we’re doing.”

He said that they have been acting as a courier service to bring documents to the homes of USDA officials who are working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it has really sped up the turnaround time. Pionk said that now that they have “broken the mold” with the USDA turnaround time, they will be going with this new technique for future projects.

Along with awarding the two contracts, the council approved various documents necessary to proceed with the work.