Douglas Road project stalled by single high bid; city seeks county ESP funds to close gap
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Summary
Design for a Douglas Road widening/ditch‑to‑pipe project is complete but a January 2024 bid returned a single proposal significantly above staff estimates; the city rejected the bid and is pursuing Pinellas County ESP funding to help close the funding gap.
The Douglas Road corridor project — a plan to replace open ditches with concrete pipe, add a continuous turn lane and construct a 10‑foot shared‑use path — remains unfunded after a single high bid caused staff to reject the solicitation.
Daniel Simpson said the design was completed and advertised for bid in January 2024, but the city received “1 single bid at 11,750,000” and rejected that bid in February. The advertised scope and market conditions produced that price, Simpson said, and staff has since applied to the Pinellas County Employment Site Program (ESP) for assistance.
Funding listed in the CIP currently includes $3.5 million in state grants and a placeholder of roughly $6 million in unidentified local funding. With the single bid substantially above those numbers, staff told council they will await grant decisions and return to council to re‑prioritize projects if additional local match cannot be identified.
Why it matters: Douglas Road is a multimodal safety and mobility priority; the project affects traffic flow and the tax base in areas that fund city services. The single high bid illustrates market uncertainty that has affected several of the city’s capital projects.
Next steps: staff will continue grant applications (including the county ESP request) and bring back options for how to proceed — re‑bid with different scope, identify additional local match, or postpone — after grant outcomes are known.