Lowest bid for Three Oaks Parkway segment $6M higher than budgeted

Posen Construction likely will get nearly $6 million more than Lee County wanted to give to widen Three Oaks Parkway from Alico to Corkscrew roads in Estero.

The Michigan-based contractor submitted the lowest bid for the four-lane project — $23,794,550.10 for utility work and roadway construction.

Lee County staff had budgeted about $18 million for road work and utilities, said Cindy Logan, county contracts manager.

The county was not surprised that the three bids opened Wednesday afternoon exceeded the estimate, Logan said. The Three Oaks bids followed the trend of the past several months, she said.

An overbid is better than no bid at all, said Don DeBerry, a project director for the county Department of Transportation. The county had no bids to open June 21, the last day to submit a bid to extend a portion of Metro Parkway, he said.

“We were thankful we had three bids,” he said.

County staff will have to double check the math in the bids before Posen is officially named the contractor, Logan said. The numbers should be verified today, she said.

Phoenix Construction Services had the next lowest bid opened Wednesday at $25,960,000. John Carlo Inc. bid $27,288,661.15.

Posen, a contracting company with a reputation for finishing on time, already is working on the stretch of Three Oaks Parkway from just south of Coconut Road to East Terry Street in Bonita Springs. They will begin widening Imperial Street from East Terry Street to Bonita Beach Road to four lanes in July. The result will be a 4.1-mile stretch of road called Imperial Parkway.

The company also is widening to four lanes East Terry Street from Old 41 Road to Imperial Street in Bonita Springs. The three projects will cost more than $50 million.

The Three Oaks extension from Alico to Corkscrew will be Posen’s fourth Florida project.

The county DOT has about $16 million left in the budget for that segment of Three Oaks, said Dave Loveland, head of planning for DOT. Some of the money will be used for right-of-way acquisitions, so staff will have to figure out how much is left, he said.

The bid “is higher than what we have available. Now, we have to figure out how much higher,” Loveland said.

The lion’s share of Posen’s bid — about $17.9 million — will go for the roadway construction. The other nearly $6 million of the bid is for utilities.

Lee County Utilities budgeted about $3.5 million for utilities, said Logan.

When Three Oaks Parkway is finished, it will create a badly needed thoroughfare from Radio Road in Collier County to Alico Road in Lee County. Three Oaks is called Livingston Road in Collier County.