Credit: Middletown Township
After previous budget concerns, the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors has voted to approve a contract for the replacement of the crumbling Reetz Avenue culvert.
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The supervisors last week awarded the $633,426 contract to GMB Construction, of Lower Southampton Township.
The winning bid landed just under the township’s $640,000 target price.
“We were pleased to see it below that benchmark,” said Isaac Kessler, the township engineer.
The move comes after the supervisors rejected an first round of bids in January when proposals exceeded $700,000.
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While the township originally budgeted $450,000 for the work, additional requirements and rising construction costs since the project was first considered in 2019 drove the price upward.
The project involves removing a 54-inch corrugated metal pipe and installing a 12-foot by 6-foot concrete box culvert.
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Officials expect the new structure that carries water under the roadway to have a service life of 100 years.
A portion of the work involves relocating a water main near the culvert.
The culvert sits under Reetz Avenue in Middletown Township between the Hulmeville Borough border and I-295.
According to Kessler, the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority determined the main must be rerouted around the new culvert rather than remaining in its current position.
Construction will be completed in phases to ensure that five homeowners living at the dead end of Reetz Avenue, as well as emergency services, maintain access to the properties.
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“It would be definitely a quicker and simpler project, less expensive if it was completely closed, detoured, torn apart and replaced without phasing,” Kessler said. “But that would leave the five homeowners with no access to their home.”
Township Manager Eden Ratliff said that while the project is relatively small in scale, it has been to be a logistical challenge for the municipality.
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“Every now and then you run into a civil engineering project that is just sort of a thorn in your side where you get to the point where like it’s a small project, it’s complicated in different ways, it winds up becoming expensive and you just want the project to be over,” Ratliff said.
