Roughly $92K in cost overruns for $1.8M Lincoln Highway improvements in downtown DeKalb approved

DeKALB – After delays cited over trench drain materials, the city of DeKalb is now on the hook for about $92,000 in cost overruns stemming from Lincoln Highway improvements in the downtown area that were completed this past summer.

Despite this development, City Manager Bill maintains that the project originally priced at an estimated $1.7 million was a success.

“The crews helped people across the street when there was dust flying and they weren’t sure where to turn,” Nicklas said. “Some people drove through wet cement and they kept a smile.”

The City Council approved a plan this week to help pay for the cost overrun out of the city’s revenue collected through its tax increment finance district, which encompasses the downtown strip.

The $1.8 million project, which went out for bid and began in the spring, spanned from First to Fourth streets downtown, according to city documents. The job consisted of pavement and sidewalk removal, drainage modifications, concrete walkway expansions and reconfigurations and asphalt lane improvements.

DeKalb city leaders said they worked to find a remedy then they learned grates needed for the project were backordered, which Nicklas called critical to the reconfiguration plan.

“It didn’t affect the width of the lanes and much of the concrete work, but it was the storm channels,” Nicklas said. “Because we were not encouraged by [Illinois Department of Transportation] to move our storm catch basins out to the curb lines, we had to bring the water inside the curb line. We had some pretty unique and creative grates, and those grates were backordered, and they were all summer.”

Nicklas acknowledged that the general contractor, Elliott and Wood, had other work it could have done, but said it didn’t pivot from the project.

“We were essentially done by Corn Fest,” Nicklas said.

Nicklas said it was early November before Veterans Day that finally the city received the grates that were on backorder.

Nicklas acknowledged the now-completed project could have left the city on the hook for more money, but said the cost overruns are legitimate.

“It cost money because it was time lost,” Nicklas said. “It was work to keep changing things and to make it safe. It came to about $92,000. That was the difference. I don’t know that there could have been any other way around this.”