Houghton will Use Funds Left from the Major Street Fund for the West Lakeshore Drive Rehabilitation Project

Houghton will use close to 92 thousand dollars from the Major Street Fund to pool enough funds for the West Lakeshore Drive Rehabilitation Project. A single bid proposal was submitted for the project by Bacco Construction. The bid was more than what the city expected for the initial work at 400,000. Houghton will add additional sewer and water system work to the project bringing the total for West Lakeshore Drive to under 573,000 dollars. City Manager Eric Waara says that the project offers an opportunity to complete additional work along with the initial project which will help to even out the high cost. 

“But overall construction bid item prices have seemed to rise again this year. We did add some water and sewer work to the project as it did represent a really good opportunity to perform some strategic improvements which would prepare both the water and sewer system down there for future work without having to dig the road up. We knew this would increase the cost but having not had any other recent bids to compare exactly how much was unknown. And as the bulk of the additional work was for sewer, we did add sewer funds when we discussed this at the last budget meeting.” – Eric Waara, City Manager, City of Houghton

Houghton will use 161,000 dollars from an MDOT grant, and 200,000 dollars from the city’s ARPA funds for the match portion with the major street funds to support the project. The nearly 92,000 dollars from the major street fund represents the fund’s balance left from the light winter. Most years Houghton uses funds left in the major street fund, the majority going toward snow removal in the winter, toward paving projects the following year.