Town receives two bids for Silver Beach Road job

By MITCH MAERSCH

Ozaukee Press staff

The Town of Belgium has a choice of two bidders to handle one of the biggest road projects in its history.

The town was awarded a $694,000 Town Road Improvement grant last spring that makes it possible to rebuild one mile of Silver Beach Road, from Highway LL west to the railroad tracks.

The grant covers about 70% of the project. The town will pay about $300,000.

At Monday’s Town Board meeting, Supr. Bill Janeshek opened sealed bids from two companies, both from Eden, that are vying to reconstruct the road — essentially do everything but the paving.

One bid is from Baumhardt Sand & Gravel for about $612,000.

The other is from Denny Rahn Excavating and Grading for nearly $480,000.

“Those numbers are great news tonight,” Town Chairman Tom Winker said.

Given the amount of technical information involved in the project, Janeshek said he wants some time to go over the bids and make sure the board is comparing “apples to apples” before making a decision.

“I’ll be going through it, double checking everything,” Janeshek said.

The board has a special meeting set for 6 p.m. Monday, April 10, to select which company to hire.

Work includes clear cutting trees, mowing and grading ditches, doing road base work and putting in new culverts.

The 24-foot-wide road will later be paved with asphalt and have three-foot gravel shoulders.

Janeshek said it’s one of the biggest town projects he has seen in nearly 30 years on the board.

The goal, Winker said, is to construct the road this year and get a binder coat down before winter.

Silver Beach Road leads into the Village of Belgium’s industrial park and paving it has been discussed for decades, but other projects took priority. Village officials have made the case that paving the road would be an economic boon, drawing more companies to the park and allow expansion of those already there.

It would also keep semi trucks off of Main Street, the detour route for those who don’t want to drive on a gravel road.

Engineering work on the project was done several years ago, but issues acquiring land for a retention pond slowed progress, so reconstructing Main Street moved ahead of paving Silver Beach.

The job has since been deemed too expensive with the village inching too close to its debt limit to take it on without significant help from a grant.

The town’s project only paves the town portion. The village’s grant application was not approved so it won’t be paving its part.