Lawton City Council selects contractor for next round of mill and overlay upgrades

City of Lawton officials are ready to launch 15 new mill and overlay projects to upgrade city streets.

City Council members selected Lawton contractor T&G Construction Tuesday as the low bidder for half of the streets remaining in the “Ten Wins” program that city leaders are using to upgrade deteriorating streets across the city. Ellsworth Construction recently completed the first 10 streets on the 40-street project list, and members of the council’s Streets and Bridges Committee recently set the details into place that would allow some of the remaining 30 streets to be addressed.

That action came Tuesday with approval of T&G Construction’s $5,102,219.01 bid to do half the streets on the remaining project list. Ward 4 Councilman George Gill, who chairs the Streets and Bridges Committee, said the plan by city officials and the contractor is to start that work as soon as the contract documentation can be completed, meaning work can begin in weeks and residents in all parts of the city will be seeing more residential street work this spring.

The 30 remaining streets had been divided into two bid packets, but the council opted to award a bid for only one of the packets Tuesday, cancelling action on the second agenda item. Gill said city officials will look at launching work on that second group of streets after T&G completes the contract awarded Tuesday.

Consulting engineer Chris Serrano had said the project lists were designed with flexibility in mind, meaning council members could award all or part of the project list, depending on what funding they had designated. And, two of the streets (Lincoln Avenue and Northwest Ferris Avenue) were listed as alternatives because of the amount of work that would have to be done, meaning the council could have opted to do 13 streets without those two alternates.

Serrano, committee members and city engineers have said they are pleased with the bids that came from three contractors, with Serrano noting T&G’s bid was 28 percent lower than the $7,078,245.09 engineering estimate.

Ellsworth Construction, Rudy Construction and T&G Construction submitted bids for the work, with their costs ranging from $5.1 million to $6.3 million. All three firms have done work previously for the city.

Gill said council members wanted as much of the mill and overlay street priorities done in this fiscal year as possible, and city administrators said a loan – to be repaid with Capital Improvement Program funds – would be used to allow work on the remaining 30.

Gill, an engineer by training, has said mill and overlay is an effective technique to repair deteriorating streets at less cost. The process – grinding off the top layer of asphalt and applying a new layer to smooth and seal the surface – will give the street five to seven more years of life for less expense than completely rebuilding the street would. Ellsworth Construction recently completed Northwest 53rd Street, the final street on that first Top 10 list.