A Green Bay area construction firm has won the contract to rebuild Columbia Street in Oconto Falls next year.
Dorner Inc. was the low bidder on the project, which involves the complete reconstruction of the street including pavement, water mains, and sanitary and storm sewers, along with sidewalks along one side of the street, which will lead to three schools once the new Oconto Falls Middle School is completed next year.
Dan Rammer of the consulting firm MSA, who is serving as engineer on the Columbia Street project, told the Oconto Falls City Council on Oct. 8 that there were six bidders for the project, ranging from $1.5 million to $2.1 million, mostly from the Green Bay area. Dorner submitted the low bid of $1,563,770.
Several bidders had conversations with the city about the deadline of having the job finished by Labor Day 2025, Rammer said.
“Essentially the road has to be open for school, so the goal is to have it open, I think the deadline is Aug. 29, so right before Labor Day,” he said.
Dorner plans to start work in late winter or early spring, probably sometime in March timeline depending on the weather, Rammer said.
A lift station is also to be built at the same time, and Advance Construction of Howard won that bid. Rammer said MSA will work with the two firms to coordinate the projects.
Dorner and MSA have worked together on a number of projects, and while Rammer said he has not worked with them before personally, they have a good reputation with his colleagues and left a good impression.
“They asked the most questions throughout the bidding process, so I knew they were very invested in the project,” he said.
Greg Kuhn, manager of Oconto Falls Municipal Utilities, said some bidders asked about starting early to beat the timeline and potentially try to hammer it out during the winter, but Dorner did not take that approach.
“The fact that Dorner said we don’t want to deal with the snow, we don’t want to deal with the school traffic, we don’t want to deal with the headaches, we would rather start fresh in spring and get it done, makes me very happy, because they understand the headaches that could have come from bad weather through the winter,” Kuhn said.
Notifications will be going out to Columbia Street residents, and an informational meeting for the neighborhood is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 30 but could be later depending on the availability of the people who will make presentations, Rammer said.
The session will give residents a chance to learn about progress since a preliminary meeting last spring.
“It was well attended in April, and now I’ll have more details about the project and the timeline,” Rammer said.
wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com
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