Oshkosh Council amends CIP and awards $47.63 million contract for water plant clear-wells replacement

The Oshkosh City Council on Feb. 10 amended its capital-improvement plan and awarded a $47,629,600 contract to CD Smith Construction to replace clear wells at the city's water filtration plant, a project city staff said has been in development for roughly two decades.

Public Works staff urged the council to approve the award and amend the resolution to correct a typographical error in the dollar amount. "This is a project that has been in the works for about 2 decades," said Mr. Ravi of the Department of Public Works, noting the effort began after a 2007 Department of Natural Resources inspection found the city's clear-well storage tanks did not meet current code. "Construction will be very lengthy as well, probably 24 to 30 months worth of construction activities," he said, adding the work must be done in phases "so that we can keep some portion of our existing storage functional on-site while we're building some of the new storage and new pump stations."

Council moved to amend the resolution so the award and staff memo matched the corrected amount and then approved the amended resolution by roll call (carried, recorded as 50).

In a related vote, the council approved Resolution 26-668 to enter a professional services agreement with Jacobs Engineering Group for construction-related services on the clear-wells replacement project. The Jacobs agreement was approved by roll call after no substantive discussion was recorded.

City staff framed the project as multi-phased: while portions of the plant are rebuilt, some existing storage capacity must remain active to maintain water services. Officials said they expect significant construction activity at the plant for the next several years and noted the city has a future capital project tied to Lakeshore reimagination that will follow the clear-wells work.

The contract award and professional-services approval follow years of planning and public meetings, officials said. The Department of Public Works asked the council to correct the resolution's dollar figure in two places to align the ordinance language with the staff memo and the awarded bid.

The council did not discuss financing details in the meeting record beyond the CIP amendment and award; the resolution packet included the staff memo and bid recap.