Work to replace the 98-year-old, 12-inch water main under West Chicago Avenue from Washington Street to Stough Street will begin later this month.
Trustees Tuesday awarded the $1.7 million contract for Phase 2 of the project to John Neri Construction Co., whose bid came in $515,000 under budget. Work is tentatively set to start March 15.
Before that project begins, ComEd has construction work to complete on Chicago Avenue from Vine Street to Washington Street.
“If you’ve been down Chicago Avenue in the last couple of days, you’ll notice ComEd trucks all over the place,” Trustee Neale Byrnes said.
The utility company is constructing a new supply line from their transformer station at Symonds Drive and North Park Avenue to South Vine Street. The proposed route is west on Symonds Drive and Chicago Avenue and then south on Vine, ending south of the BNSF railroad tracks.
ComEd has agreed to complete the Chicago Avenue portion of its project by March 15, and trustees Tuesday granted the company permission to start work an hour earlier than permitted under village code. Construction hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday through March 15 and then 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday until the project is finished in mid-May.
In addition to scheduling, the water main project likely will present some other challenges, village engineer Dan Deeter wrote in his memo to trustees.
“These include traffic management during construction, leaking underground storage tanks adjacent to the planned route and conflicts with an above-average number of underground utilities already under West Chicago Avenue,” Deeter reported. “Staff and our engineering consultants have attempted to quantify these issues in the line item quantities. However, these challenges create the potential for larger variations to some line items.”
Neri also was selected to complete Phase 1 of this replacement last summer. The $1 million project replaced the water main from the plant on Symonds Drive west to Garfield Avenue, requiring crews to dig under the railroad tracks.
The village also awarded the construction observation contract for the 2021 project to Hr Green Inc. in an amount not to exceed $121,980. That bid was $126,000 under budget.
Village officials acknowledged the work will affect travel through town.
“Chicago Avenue is going to be pretty difficult for the upcoming months,” village manager Kathleen Gargano said.
