BENTONVILLE -- Benton County is advertising revised bid documents to repair War Eagle Bridge, county officials said.
Brenda Guenther, comptroller, said the bids were advertised Friday and will be advertised again Feb. 17 with a bid opening set for March 3.
Bridge work
Benton County spent about $640,000 to repair War Eagle Bridge in 2010. State inspectors identified critical deficiencies in the structure during an annual inspection in 2013.
Source: Staff report
County Judge Barry Moehring said the county obtained approval from state and federal highway officials for revised bids requiring companies to show experience doing similar repair work on other bridges listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The county advertised for bids on the project in October without that stipulation, and the low bidder was a company with no experience in working on bridges.
"We were told in a meeting with [Great River Engineering], the consultants, that a couple of the previous bidders had experience with historic bridges," Moehring said. "That may not have come out in the bids because it wasn't specifically asked for."
Moehring said the county submitted the revised bid documents for state and federal approval, which has extended the county's timetable for doing the work. Moehring said the project should be completed by the end of September.
"We might have to move that back a little bit, but not too much," he said.
The county hired Great River Engineering to assess and develop recommendations for repairing the 109-year-old bridge. The company also included two alternate packages of work to extend the life of the bridge and increase its weight-bearing capacity.
The county reduced the posted weight limit on the bridge after state inspectors found critical deficiencies during an annual inspection.
The engineering estimate from Great River for the base bid work was $859,550, with the base plus the first alternate coming in at $987,550 and the base bid plus both alternates at $1,158,550. The county is to receive a $500,000 federal Transportation Alternatives Program grant to help pay for the work.
Moehring said the work will be done in stages, with the bridge being closed for some of the time, but he expects the work schedule will allow the bridge to open during Sharp's Show of War Eagle, the craft fair that draws crowds each May.
Pat Adams of Rogers, justice of the peace for District 6 and chairman of the Transportation Committee, said he's ready to get the work completed.
"I was ready to get this behind us months ago," Adams said.
Adams said the War Eagle Bridge is the last historic bridge in Benton County.
"The rest of them are more ditch crossings and wet weather creek crossings," Adams said. "I don't believe there's any other historical bridges we would need to address."
Glenn Jones with the Benton County Historical Preservation Commission said he's glad the work will be done on War Eagle Bridge. Jones said Adams was right about War Eagle being the last of the historically significant bridges in the county.
"That's because they destroyed the rest of them," Jones said, citing Fisher Ford Bridge and Colonel Meyers Bridge as two bridges torn down and replaced in recent years. "War Eagle is the last one. That's it."
Metro on 02/11/2017