October 17, 2008

City awards underpass lighting contract
Local electrical contractor is one bid winner

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle

     This winter, The Dalles is going to shine, at least at one special underpass.
The Columbia Gateway Urban Renewal Agency awarded contracts Monday for the installation of a series of LED lights behind the glass bricks in the sides of the Union Street underpass.
     The lights were originally part of the underpass plans, but were cut when the price tag at the time was $500,000. Today’s LED lights use a fraction of the electricity of incandescent bulbs and have a lifespan measured in decades rather than days. Costs have also dropped dramatically in the past five years.
     The agency budgeted $120,000 for the project at its June meeting, but bids from the three separate sections of the project totaled just $107,432.20.
Winning bidders were:
     • Greybar Electric of Portland — $73,122.20 for the LED lights, other equipment, installation, operation and software training.
     • CH2M Hill of Portland — $17,380 for engineering services and supervision of construction.
     • Hire Electric of The Dalles — $16,930 for electrical construction work.
     “The lights change the colors of the glass walls for the seasons,” City Manager Nolan Young told the board in June. “For example, on the Fourth of July, we’d have red, white and blue. We’d have orange on Halloween, and Christmas colors during the holidays.”
     The lights are also envisioned as an attraction for tour boats, which will tie up opposite the tunnel at a planned boat dock.
     Young said Monday that the goal is to have the lighting system in place for the Starlite Parade on Nov. 28, the day after Thanksgiving.
     Urban Renewal also awarded a $54,343 rehabilitation grant to American Legion Post 19 for work on the Legion building at the corner of Second and Court streets. A 2004 grant provided funds for the removal and replacement of the roof and drainage system and repair of brickwork.
     The new grant would fund Phase 2 and 4 of the planned restoration.
     Phase 2 will repair brickwork on the north side of the building, including cleaning, repointing and repair of existing mortar joints, for $21,493.
     Phase 3 would have been the creation of an ADA (Americans with Disability Act)-approved access to the rear of the building, but the Legion discovered there was no recorded access easement to the rear of the building, and the adjacent property owner declined to provide an easement. The Urban renewal board provided $5,000 for engineering and design for a relocated ADA access.
     Phase 4 will replace glass in eleven second floor windows, a vaulting ceiling
inside above the windows to provide access to the entire window area, and the paint the south and west sides of the building, for $27,850.
     The board also agreed to buy a portion of Madison Street next to the railroad tracks that had been vacated to Union Pacific more than a century ago, at the railroad’s minimum purchase price for any land transaction of $7,500. The move allows the agency to extend the streetscape project to that block of Madison and clears up a question of easements for power lines.