The contract for the final phase is expected to be awarded next week.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The final phase of North Street's reconstruction is expected to start in August.

 

The bid's for the fourth phase of the massive streetscape project were opened on Thursday with four companies that had bid, all within budget.

 

The city's purchasing department is expected to award the contract in the next week and a pre-construction meeting will be scheduled for Aug. 3. 

 

"Construction will begin in August," said Laura Mick, a community development specialist with the city, said on Wednesday. 

 

Thursday's bid opening was the second of the summer. The city had hoped to have the project under construction in July but the initial round of bids came in too high.

 

"We bid the project and the bids came in high. We went back and changed the scope of the work and rebid it," Mick said. "We got three bids and they were all really close but they were all over $5 million."

 

The designers, Fuss and O'Neill, tweaked the design to pull it under the target. The city was awarded $4.5 million from the state to finish the project and Mick said the city has some capital funds to spend on it, too. 

 

Overall, the project is starting about a month later than previously anticipated but Mick said she is confident that the project will be completed by October 2016. Workers will work as late into this year as possible and then pick back up in the spring.

 

Engineer Jon Dietrich of Fuss and O'Neill said the plans for the fourth and final section are similar to the rest of the street scape project. The project was first identified in a 2005 master plan for the city's downtown and the first construction started shortly after in conjunction with the redevelopment of the Colonial Theater.

 

It included Park Square to Housatonic Street, and then north by the Beacon Cinema. The third section was done last year from Berkshire Medical Center to Madison Avenue. The final phase will now finish off between Madison Avenue and Columbus Avenue.

 

"This will be the final phase and it is pretty much consistent with the general design," said Dietrich on Thursday. 

 

The goals of the design were to improve pedestrian safety, traffic circulation, and make the downtown look better. One feature of the final section that was added is uplighting of trees near the senior center.

 

For pedestrian safety, bumpouts at crosswalks shorten the distance pedestrians walk to get across the street, there will be rapid flash beacons at unsignalized crosswalks that shines yellow lights alerting traffic, and the ramps for wheelchairs will be renovated. The sidewalks will also be renovated and bikes lanes added in the road.

 

For traffic, all of the signals will be upgraded. There will be no changes to turn lanes in this phase.

 

"Mainly it is an upgrade of signal equipment," Dietrich said, adding that the detection equipment for the lights include for bicycles.

 

The section will be the longest in the project but the work on the road is expected to be less intrusive than the last phase. Dietrich said the grading in the section by Berkshire Medical Center did not conform to standards and needed a full-depth reconstruction. That is not the case with the next phase.

 

"We couldn't mill deep enough to change that section," he said.

 

The work will stay on North Street but some of the lighting at the intersections of side streets will be upgraded.

 

"We're excited about getting North Street finished," Dietrich said. "I'll be a nice improvement."