SOLANA BEACH — In response to resident complaints, council members recently paved the way for one of largest street repair projects city history.At the June 13 meeting, City Council authorized a contract for more than $500,000 to fix nearly 232,000 square feet of roads, sidewalks, curbs and gutters, as well as the public parking lot next to the Solana Beach & Tennis Club on South Sierra Avenue.
“We’re pleased to bring this to you,” City Manager David Ott said. “I know you’ve gotten complaints about the roads.”
“This particular project on the street repair is the biggest project … maybe you’ve ever had before you,” he said.
Potholes on 16 streets will be removed. Some of the largest project areas include Stevens Avenue between Lomas Santa Fe and San Rodolfo drives, Nardo Avenue between Lomas Santa Fe and Solana Circle and Highland Avenue between San Lucas and San Andres drives.
Pothole repairs will also be made on Cliff, Estrella and Palmitas streets, Barbara, North Acacia and South Granados avenues, Lomas Santa Fe, Glencrest, San Andres and Solana drives, and Santa Estella, Santa Victoria and Santa Patricio.
The largest component of the project is 188,000 square feet of rubberized asphalt and concrete overlays on Rios, Glenmont, Lynwood and Granados avenues, Canyon Drive and Sun Valley Road.
Concrete pavement will be removed and replaced with 7 inches of asphalt on Ocean Street, east of Pacific Avenue, and on Pacific at Cliff Street.
City workers have tried to fix cracks on those streets with temporary asphalt patches but they don’t last long, City Engineer Mo Sammak said.
“When the cracks become multi-integrated with each other … there is nothing you can do short of removal and reconstruction,” Sammak said.
“Unfortunately they’re very expensive so we can’t really do the entire area but we’ll do as much as we can afford for a given year,” he said.
Several sidewalks, gutters and curbs will be repaired in the northeast and northwest quadrants of the city. “We’ve been patching those locations but they do need to be permanently repaired,” Sammak said. “The parking lot is pretty much deteriorated and the asphalt is really beyond patchwork.”
The project includes improvements to bring the parking lot and sidewalks in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The project was advertised in April. Five bids were received ranging from $509,200 to $641,400. Sammak said according to public contracting laws the job must be given to the lowest qualified bidder, which was ATP General Engineering Contractors.
Street and sidewalk construction will cost about $503,000. Parking lot repairs are estimated at $31,500. With a 9 percent contingency for testing, inspections and additional street repairs the total project cost comes in at approximately $582,000.
Project funding includes $250,000 budgeted this year for capital improvements, $150,000 of TransNet II money, $150,000 from the gas tax reserve, a $19,380 previous allocation for the parking lot and $12,300 from the public works budget.
The parking lot work has been separated because gas tax and TransNet money can’t be used because the area is not in the public right of way.
Sammak said city code requires adjacent property owners to repair sidewalks. Staff is in the process of contacting them, however, “on the very, very high priority ones we won’t wait,” he said.
The approved contract is for repairs of sidewalks adjacent to city-owned lands and facilities and sidewalks requiring repairs when the conditions were not created or maintained by the owner of the lot, Ott said.
The current list of repairs is based on a preliminary report from consultants. A final list will be submitted before work begins. According to the staff report, the project will take about six weeks and should be complete by the end of August.
