A gravel path heading into Ninth Street Park in North Wales could be paved and modified to improve accessibility under a grant-funded contract awarded in July 2024. Photo by Dan Sokil | The Reporter.
Work could start soon on the first phase of long-discussed improvements to a park in North Wales.
Council voted on Tuesday night to award a $102,000 contract for a path through Ninth Street Park.
“This was pre-Covid, believe it or not. We were looking at doing a redo of the walkway, from Tenth and Church, that continues through Ninth Street Park,” said borough Manager Christine Hart.
A worn gravel path slated for future widening leads to a pedestrian walkway running over a stream in Ninth Street Park in North Wales on Wednesday, Nov. 2 2022.Ninth Street Park is a roughly 2.2-acre parcel located between Ninth and Tenth streets just east of Church Street, which currently features a gazebo, boardwalk and driveway running through a grassy area covered with trees, and a small stream running east-west through the park and behind the neighboring homes.
In 2022, council first heard of a project that had been on the drawing board for roughly three years prior, to upgrade the gravel path running through the park using state funding. After a grant was awarded in early 2023, council heard more this past May about additional projects at Ninth Street that could include streambank restoration meant to remove sediment, adding native plants to create a bioretention area, and more pervious paving.
“We were looking at revamping (the path), and giving it some accessibility, for ADA” standards not met by the current path, Hart said.
“Unfortunately, Covid hit in 2020, all of ’20 and ’21 there was a stop work order. So we’ve resurrected this funding, if you will, and taken it back out to bid,” she said.
Site plan showing current features and possible upgrades to Ninth Street Park in North Wales Borough.Early versions of the path project had an estimated price tag around $90,000, and the estimated price tag has since increased due to post-pandemic inflation and supply chain issues, the manager told council. The bid documents put out for interested contractors also called for “a mini-meadow, for some educational and stormwater benefits” on the Church Street side of the park, she said, yielding an updated total project cost of roughly $108,000 for that meadow and a pervious path surface meant to let water percolate through rather than run off.
“Right now, it is crushed stone that has seen better days, and often times gets washed out onto Ninth Street, and/or Church Street,” Hart said.
“It’ll be blacktopped, if you will, with a ‘perkEpave’ material, and then we’re adding ADA (accessible entrances) on Ninth Street, along with a handicapped parking spot and a mini-meadow along Church,” she said.
As she spoke, the manager showed a bid tabulation by borough engineering consultant Bowman Consulting that vetted bids from contractors Horgan Brothers, T. Schiefer, Delaware Environmental Construction and Gorecon. All four gave bids for the base project and one add alternate, and Bowman’s recommendation was to award the contract to Horgan Brothers for just over $102,000, the lowest of the four prices, without the alternate.
A stream can be seen running through Ninth Street Park in North Wales on a rainy Tuesday, May 14 2024.Council president Sal Amato asked what was included in the alternate, and Hart said it included additional items: “things that aren’t necessarily required, or maybe they’re in next year’s budget” in case bids come in lower than expected. Bid documents indicate the add alternate included a line item for “landscape edging” with a cost from Horgan of $35,000 to do so, and Hart said the engineer recommended not including the alternate since it would take the total project cost above the grant funds available.
Councilman Sherwin Collins asked if the borough had used any of those contractors before, and Hart said she didn’t recall using Horgan during her near-decade as manager, but in the past had seen the firm used for paving and construction in town. The project should be done before the end of the current year, and the path project would likely be done too soon to qualify for the state-mandated sediment reduction targets discussed at length by council earlier this year, but later projects at the same park likely will.
Council then voted unanimously to award the contract to Horgan Brothers, and Hart said she’d give updates in future meetings. North Wales borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Aug. 13 at the borough municipal building, 300 School Street; for more information visit www.NorthWalesBorough.org.
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