Seymour Town Engineer Brian Nesteriak.
SEYMOUR – The Board of Selectpersons unanimously awarded a $5.7 million bid to a contractor to reconstruct West Church Street, Bungay and Botsford roads.
The board at its Dec. 17 meeting awarded the bid to DeRita & Sons Construction Co., Inc., of Middletown, who was the low bidder for the project at $5,722,749. Seymour Town Engineer Brian Nesteriak said seven bids were received, ranging from $5.7 million to $7.8 million.
First Selectwoman Annmarie Drugonis said Tuesday (Jan. 7) that she met with Nesteriak and construction officials who said construction will begin March 3.
Nesteriak said the project is expected to take about 15 months to complete.
The project will be funded through the state’s Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program (LOTCIP) fund.
West Church Street, Bungay Road and Botsford Road are heavily-traveled roads that provide access to state Routes 8, 67 and 34.
Construction will be broken into four phases.
Drugonis said a public information session will be held in mid- to late February. Drugonis also said once she knows the schedule of when each section will be worked on, the town will send robocalls to residents.
Nesteriak and his company, B&B Engineering, will be meeting regularly with the contractor, Drugonis said, who will give her regular updates of when each phase will begin and how long each phase should take.
“The whole road is not going to be ripped up for 15 months, it will be done in sections,” Nesteriak said. “This is an exciting project. It’s going to be an inconvenience for a little while for a lot of us, but when it’s done, I think everyone will appreciate the improvements.”
During each phase of construction, West Church, Bungay and Botsford will become one-way up to the high school.
The project in part calls for 6,900 linear feet (or about 1.3 miles) of new roadway base, new pavement, consistent lane widths, new drainage, new curbing, new crosswalks and new sidewalks that will connect West Church Street at the Seymour Historical Society building all the way to Seymour High School on Botsford Road. There will also be 35, new on-street parking spaces at Bungay School to help ease bus and drop-off traffic.
The roads also have poor drainage, which causes icy conditions in the winter, and there are many potholes.
“This is going to be a total, complete road reconstruction,” Nesteriak said. “It will be a replacement of all surface materials, going down 23 inches, with new curbs, sidewalks, paving, and you’ll be able to walk from the Seymour Historical Society all the way up to Seymour High School on new sidewalks. New shrubs, bushes and trees will be installed. And the biggest thing is that the road will have consistent widths, with new curbs on both sides and new drainage.”
