Clear Lake council approves street light project for Emerald Edge subdivision

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council last night approved awarding a contract for a street lighting project for the Emerald Edge subdivision.

As part of a development agreement with Sukup Ag LLC approved last year for the subdivision, the city agreed to offset the costs associated with the installation of an “upgraded” street lighting, similar to what the city agreed to do for the developers of the Courtway Park subdivision east of Interstate 35.

Under the plan, the developer will reimburse the city of the cost of the standard Alliant street light fixture. The project consists of: the placement of nine new decorative street light fixtures, including foundations; about 2000 feet of electrical conduit and conductor; and a lighting control panel. The preliminary projected cost of the project was $112,224, with the lowest bid being submitted by K&W Electric of Cedar Falls for $99,840.

Jason Petersburg with Veenstra & Kimm Engineering says K&W has worked on several different Clear Lake projects.  “I know they’ve done some traffic signal work in town and then they did the North Shore Drive street lighting. Then also they are currently working on this phase of East Main.”

Petersburg says he did have a discussion with K&W during the bidding process about material availability lead time for this project. He says K&W thinks there may potentially be an issue with the lighting control panel that could delay the completion of the project.  “I’ve asked for other manufacturers, other ideas, other alternatives, and he said there really isn’t any because this manufacturer furnishes the meter socket to all the other manufacturers as well, and that’s been the hold up. He doesn’t think it’s going to be a huge delay, but it may not be in by the end of April when we’d like to have those lights up.”

The project schedule calls for it to start in March and be done by May.