Highway 9 sewer and water project is slow in getting started--but city's engineering consultant isn't worried

The project to extend sewer and water lines to the Decorah Business Park along Highway 9 is getting a slower than anticipated start.  But city engineering consultant Lindsay Erdman says the contractor for the project--Skyline Construction of Decorah—understands it still faces the same completion deadline of late next summer.

Erdman has told City of Decorah officials that several questions have come up about the details of the project, which has slowed the start of the project.  Erdman says Skyline Construction had planned on the project as a fall project anyway.  He says it would be better to wait on the start of the project and have continuous construction, rather than tearing up the highway, only to leave the project temporarily to do another project.

Skyline Construction won the bid for the project by being the lowest of three bidders, submitting a bid that was under the City of Decorah's budgeted amount of slightly over $3 million.  In addition the city will spend  another $526,000 in engineering costs and $530,000 in reimbursements and contingencies for the Highway 9 utility project.

The contract issued by the City of Decorah calls for the work to be done over a period of 200 weekdays.  47 workdays have already passed as of last Friday.  But that still leaves 153 workdays--and weekend days and dates between November 15th to April 1st are not counted.  That places the completion deadline around August 31st of next year--and Erdman says he's confident Skyline can meet that deadline.  Erdman Engineering sends Skyline Construction a weekly report on the number of working days remaining in the project.