KINGSTON >> The federal agency providing the city with funding to help with Washington Avenue sinkhole repairs has given the OK to enter into contracts with companies to perform work there.
City Engineer Ralph Swenson said the U.S. Economic Development Administration has given the city permission to award the contracts.
“They have given us the green light,” Swenson said.
However, Swenson added, the city is not likely to officially award the contracts until one more property easement is obtained to allow for, among other things, equipment to be stored on private property.
Swenson has said the projects were expected to start in May.
Earlier this month, the Common Council authorized Mayor Shayne Gallo to enter into two contracts with companies to do work at the sinkhole site.
Swenson has said one of the contracts, with Sun-Up Enterprises of Poughkeepsie, totals $1,441,134, while the other, with GEO Solutions of New Kensington, Pa., totals $2,471,700.
The larger amount is targeted for a soil stabilization project that will include the construction of an underground archway. The other project will include piping work at the nearby Tannery Brook.
The city had received six bids for the piping work and four for a stabilizing archway.
Swenson has said each contractor who submitted a bid was estimating production differently. Contractors can sometimes “overthink” the work, he said.
The low bidders, though, were close to the engineers’ estimates, according to Swenson. He added that the low bidders where reviewed and investigated before the recommendation was made to hire them.
Swenson has said the expectation is that the archway work, by GEO Solutions, will be substantially completed by Sept. 30, while the work by Sun-Up Enterprises will be substantially completed by Dec. 31.
If that schedule holds, the city could reopen Washington Avenue to local traffic by the end of the year, he said. Swenson also said, though, through traffic would have to wait until the road surface is completed.
The sinkhole opened almost four years ago and has kept several blocks of Washington Avenue closed to traffic ever since.
The archway, which will measure 50 feet high, 175 feet long and weigh 10,000 tons, is to be built beneath the road’s surface and above a 100-year-old stormwater tunnel that has been blamed for creating the sinkhole in the spring of 2011.
The city has authorized the spending of $7 million on sinkhole repairs, with $1.12 million of that reimbursed by the grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, according to a spreadsheet compiled by Swenson.
