More Bad News For Brevard: Cost of Railroad Avenue Bridge Will Climb by $700,000

One week after learning of diminished trail funding, Brevard City Council was told that its share of the bridge project may increase from $200,000 to $900,000.

BREVARD — At a second straight meeting, the Brevard City Council on Monday heard bad financial news about transportation funding.

In January, the subject was the drastic shrinking of an account earmarked for projects such as the multi-use Estatoe Trail. This week, it was the cost of replacing the 67-year-old bridge on Railroad Avenue over King Creek.

The city, originally on the hook for about $200,000 of the project’s price, could now have to pay about $900,000, said Finance Director Dean Luebbe.

“This is the second meeting in a row that we’ve had some unexpected costs,” said Council member Aaron Baker. “On a small city budget there’s only so much unexpected cost you can afford. It’s a little frustrating . . . I hope we can find some creative solutions.”

City staffers first told Council of the cost increase at its Jan. 18 meeting, but also said they hoped some of it would be covered by the state Department of Transportation.

DOT has since declined to do so, Luebbe reported Monday, because the bridge is owned by the city, not the state. Representatives from the engineering firm designing the bridge, CDM Smith, also spoke at the meeting, explaining the origins of the city’s skyrocketing share.

CDM had originally designed a 54-foot-wide bridge — complete with bike lanes and sidewalks — when Railroad was envisioned as a transportation corridor called the Brevard West Loop. This plan was scrapped after residents objected to it in 2016.

That required CDM Smith to create new drawings for a narrower bridge, and the city has since built a separate bridge over King to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists.

In 2018, CDM again changed the plans to include utility relocation, said a CDM project manager, Kit Persiani.

The delays and the redesigns caused the price to soar from slightly more than $1 million to about $1.7 million.

The state had agreed to use federal funds to pay 80 percent of that original cost, meaning the city’s share was slightly more than $200,000.

But as the project’s costs have soared, this contribution has not.

“NC DOT informed (the city) that it would not be cost-sharing in the $700,000 balance, thus the City’s current costs in the bridge replacement project now totals $900,000,” a staff report said.

The city has spent $595,000 on the project for engineering and right of way acquisition, according to the minutes of last month’s meeting. Subtract the state’s contribution from that total, Luebbe said after the discussion, and the total amount of new funds the city must come up with is about $675,000.

The city will seek other sources of this funding, Luebbe also said, including federal infrastructure grants and, possibly, money in future state budgets earmarked by lawmakers. The Council will discuss options for paying for both the bridge and future sections of the Estatoe at an all-day strategy conference scheduled for Feb. 23.

Last month, Council learned that money available in a fund to pay for the trail, originally thought to be about $1 million, was actually less than $50,000, mostly due to the loss of grant money and a deficit in the trail fund owed to the city’s general fund.

On Monday, in a separate discussion, Council agreed to switch priorities on the trail construction. After the completion of work on the stretch leading to West Main Street, the city had planned to continue the path to the Mary C. Jenkins Community Center.

But city Planning Director Paul Ray said work on that section is not ready to begin because of difficulties with surrounding topography and in acquiring right of way. “That is a tricky section,” he told Council.

The city, on the other hand, already owns the planned path of the trail between the community center and Rosman Highway, Ray said.

Council on Monday voted to use the remaining money in the trail fund to pay for the design of that stretch.

Itr was the escalating costs of the Railroad bridge, however, that created some of the most heated exchanges at Monday’s four-hour-plus meeting, which featured several contentious discussions on subjects ranging from expensive transportation work to a modestly priced community garden.

Mayor Pro Tem Gary Daniel repeatedly pressed CDM on its share of the total costs of the bridge project, about 40 percent.

“Is it normal to have a 40 percent cut?” he asked. It is not, a CDM representative acknowledged, blaming the firm’s costs partly on the changes in plans.

Council member Geraldine Dinkins followed with several questions about the delays and added costs of the bridge, while Council member Mac Morrow said that the plan for a narrower structure had actually saved money and Mayor Maureen Copelof urged Council to focus on the present, not the past.

“I think we all remember the West Loop, and I think we all remember the public response,” she said. “So rescaling this project really was a response to the people.”

“I agree with all you said,” Dinkins said, “but I believe we learn from mistakes and that is something we should do and not just gloss over and move on.”

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