GILROY
– A highway project that’s key to new east-Gilroy shopping
centers is going ahead now that bids have come in well below
engineer’s estimates.
GILROY – A highway project that’s key to new east-Gilroy shopping centers is going ahead now that bids have come in well below engineer’s estimates.
Directors of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority voted Thursday to execute a contract for interchange improvements at U.S. 101 and state Highway 152.
The project will widen the southbound U.S. 101 off-ramp to the Pacheco Pass Highway – which runs east from Tenth Street – and construct a loop on-ramp for westbound 152 to southbound 101.
The new ramps are seen as a crucial for the city’s two new regional “power” shopping centers, Regency Centers’ Gilroy Crossing Shopping Center and Newman Development Corp’s Pacheco Pass Center.
Which construction company will end up with the contract isn’t clear yet. VTA staff opened bids Wednesday and brought them to directors before determining the apparent low bidder in order to gain a month of summer construction activity.
A bid from Graniterock’s Pavex Construction Division initially appears lowest at $1.63 million – 18 percent below the engineer’s estimate of $1.95 million. However, the highest bid submitted was $1.84 million, still below the estimate.
If the bid checks out, construction is scheduled to begin next month and be completed by January 2004. Officials said a delay Thursday would have meant a September start on the project.
“We succeeded in getting this bid approved approximately six weeks ahead of the original schedule … hopefully reducing potential gridlock in that area for the holiday season,” said Gilroy Mayor Tom Springer, who is a VTA board member along with District 1 County Supervisor Don Gage.
Gilroy is contributing one-third of the project cost for the project, with the remainder funded from the 1996 Measure B half-cent sales tax program, according to a VTA memo.
The interchange is one of several in a package of overall 152 safety improvements from Measure B planned for Gilroy’s east side. An intersection in front of the Lowe’s and Costco stores has also proceeded, but safety improvements further east on 152 in front of Gilroy Foods are currently on a “hold” list because of declining tax revenues.
The highway interchange approved Thursday was once on that hold list as well until county supervisors approved nearly $3.1 million in funding for it last December.
