The city of Arnold will spend $6,332,296.45 to replace roads in the Bayshore subdivision, to improve Lonedell Road and to resurface both Haag Road and the Arnold Recreation Center parking lot.
City Council members voted 7-0 on March 6 to approve two contracts for the road work. Ward 3 Councilman Rodney Mullins was absent from the meeting.
Arnold will pay Spencer Contracting of Arnold $4,047,269.45 to complete the city’s 2025 street overlay projects, which include the work in the Bayshore subdivision, on Haag Road and at the rec center. The company submitted the lowest of three bids for those projects, which includes a full-depth concrete and curb replacement for the roads in the Bayshore subdivision, according to council documents.
Arnold will pay KJ Unnerstall Construction of Washington $2,285,000 for the Lonedell Road project. That company submitted the lowest of seven bids for the Lonedell Road improvement project, council documents show.
Street overlay improvement project
City Administrator Bryan Richison told council members that Arnold sought a base bid and two alternate bids for the overlay improvement project this year due to the condition of the roads in the Bayshore subdivision.
The subdivision is one of the oldest in the city and is located off Telegraph Road. The streets in the subdivision include Bayshore Parkway, Biscayne Boulevard, Boca Raton Drive, Ballast Point Drive, Bal Harbor Drive, Los Olas Boulevard, Surfside Drive, Bayvue Boulevard and Causeway Drive.
The first bid was for only overlaying and replacing damaged slabs on the streets. The first alternate bid included a full-depth asphalt and curb replacement in the Bayshore subdivision along with the overlay and slab replacement, and the second alternate bid included a full-depth concrete and curb replacement in the Bayshore subdivision along with the overlay and slab replacement.
“The reason we did those alternates is because we suspect that we may run into the same problem that we ran into at Southern Aire,” Richison told the council. “When we undertook Southern Aire, we did not plan to do full-depth replacement. We were hoping there would just be some spots, but it turned out to be more expensive than that. Because we didn’t plan for that at the beginning, it was kind of a mess of a project. We had to scramble and go from slab replacement to basically rebuilding the road in the middle of the project. It was quite a mess over there.”
Judy Wagner, who retired as the city’s Public Works Director in January but continues to work part-time as the project engineer for Arnold, said in April 2024 that crews discovered the streets were hollow underneath the asphalt in the Southern Aire subdivision.
The city paid Spencer an additional $405,813.28 to replace the asphalt under the subdivision’s streets and then do the overlay. Arnold had already agreed to pay Spencer $966,027.63 to have asphalt replaced or repaired on 14 streets last year, council documents said.
James Pogorzelski, interim Public Works director, said the work in the Bayshore subdivision and on Haag Road will begin after the parking lot at the rec center, 1695 Missouri State Road, is repaved. The parking lot work is expected to be completed by May 26, when the outdoor pool is scheduled to open for the season.
Pogorzelski said work in the Bayshore subdivision is expected to be completed by mid-November.
“The rec center (parking lot) and Haag Road will be milled and overlayed for a new asphalt surface,” he said. “Haag Road will have four new culverts installed underneath the road to fix poor drainage in that area. The Bayshore subdivision will be a complete rebuild. We will tear out existing streets and replace it with new concrete streets.”
Pogorzelski said only portions of the rec center’s parking lot will be closed at one time to allow access to the building, and one lane is expected to be open on all streets in the Bayshore subdivision during the work there.
“Residents will be notified in advance of any disruptions,” he said.
Pogorzelski said along with replacing the roads in the Bayshore subdivision, the city will build a bus lane at Bayshore Parkway and Telegraph Road to allow students to get on and off the bus away from traffic.
Richison told the council that the overlay improvement project will cost about double what the city budgeted for the work this year due to the concrete replacement in the Bayshore subdivision.
However, he also said the city will fund at least part of the cost of the projects through its portion of Jefferson County’s 1/2-cent sales tax for road and bridge projects.
Richison said Arnold currently has a balance of $7,917,208.50 from the county road and bridge sales tax.
“We have a healthy balance and will be able to accommodate this number,” he told the council.
Lonedell Road
Wagner said the Lonedell Road project does not have a start date, but she anticipates the work will begin after the school year ends in late May.
“Depending on utility relocation and weather, we anticipate the project could be complete this year,” she said.
Wagner said preparation work for the road project already has started.
She said TJ’s Landscaping and Tree Service of Arnold has removed 70 trees from along the road in preparation for the work there.
Arnold paid TJ’s Landscaping a total of $45,450 to remove the trees. Initially, the city was going to pay $26,600 to have 34 trees removed due to northern long-eared and Indiana bats using those trees to roost. The first contract was approved Jan. 16.
Richison told the council the roosting season for the bats is March 31 through Oct. 1, and if the city didn’t remove the trees before the start of the roosting season, the trees could not be removed until after Oct. 1.
He told the council on March 6 that 36 more trees needed to be removed because bats also used those to roost. The council voted 7-0 on March 6 to pay TJ’s Landscaping $18,850 to remove the additional trees, which were smaller than the 34 trees the company had been hired to remove.
Wagner said Ameren is relocating utility poles along Lonedell Road, and Spire is scheduled to start relocating mains on April 1, with that work expected to take more than six months.
She said the improvements will be made along an approximately 0.8-mile stretch of Lonedell Road from White Dawn Court to Pomme Road. There will be lane closures during the utility relocation and construction.
“When complete road closures are necessary for pipe crossings and other activities, signs will be installed and emergency agencies will be notified,” Wagner said.
The project includes widening the lanes from 9 1/2 feet to 11 feet wide, resurfacing the roadway, putting in stormwater pipes, enclosing the open drainage ditches along the side of the road, installing curbing gutters with inlets to collect water to filter through the pipes to a nearby creek, building a 6-foot sidewalk on one side of the road, doing work on sharp hills on the road to lessen blind spots and posting signs reminding drivers to share the road with bicyclists.
“As you drive the existing road, it is obvious that the road needs to be repaired,” Wagner said. “The road has dips, patches and edges that are dropping off into the ditches.
“The completed road will be smoother, wider and safer for pedestrians. It will be safer for larger vehicles and look much better.”
In 2023, Arnold received a Surface Transportation Block Grant from the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council of Governments to help pay for the Lonedell Road project.
Wagner said the grant will cover $1,306,216 of the cost, and Arnold will pay the remaining $978,784.