By Greg Chandler
Zeeland Record
The city of Zeeland won’t make any cuts to its project to rebuild Church Street from Washington Avenue to the city’s Clean Water Plant, even though the street reconstruction portion of the project will now cost close to $1.1 million more than what the city had budgeted.
The City Council Monday unanimously approved a recommendation from Assistant City Manager Kevin Plockmeyer to affirm the full scope of the Church Street project, which now has a total estimated price tag of $9.1 million, and direct staff to plan for adjustments in the city’s 2026-27 budget to bridge the funding gap.
The city had earlier this fall established a $4 million budget in its municipal street fund for the street reconstruction portion of the project, based on cost projections from its engineering consultant, Moore and Bruggink.
However, two separate bids, focused on the project’s two phases, came in at a total of $5,092,036 - $3,044,155 for the portion from Central Avenue to the Clean Water Plant, and another $2,047,881 for the section from Central to Washington. The final amount for the Central-to-Washington section came after a $905,662 Michigan Department of Transportation grant was applied.
“We can’t do the Washington-to-Central piece if we don’t do the Central piece to the Clean Water Plant,” Plockmeyer said. “This was a both/and type of project. We have to do both of them.”
In addition, the city expects to spend $1,092,750 of its water fund and $724,168 from its clean water fund for the Church Street project. Zeeland Township, which is helping to fund upsizing the sanitary sewer line between Washington and the Clean Water Plant, is expected to contribute $1,285,384 as its pro-rated share toward the project, according to a memo from Plockmeyer.
The city had begun design work on the Church Street project in 2023 with the idea that construction would take place last year. But that idea was put on the shelf in place of the Taft Street reconstruction that was necessitated by water main failures on Taft, Plockmeyer said.
Plockmeyer attributes the higher-than-expected bid prices in part to seeking bids later in the season than usual.
“We were pushing to get this design out the door. We were obligated with MDOT to the last day possible … in order to make sure we secured the $900,000 of the grant funding. But then there were things that we added along the way – some scope items that we put in, I would say last-minute, and didn’t quite get the full budgets until we had the project in front of us,” Plockmeyer said.
Among the items that got added to the Church Street project, Plockmeyer said, included:
• More than $400,000 in additional storm sewer costs, including the addition of an 18-inch drain tile that was included to address groundwater issues and reduce dewatering challenges during installation of major storm and sanitary sewer lines.
• Dredging of the detention pond at the Clean Water Plant, which was not included in the original cost estimate. Plockmeyer said the pond, which collects stormwater sediment and supports irrigation at the nearby Zeeland Cemetery, is nearly full. The city estimates the cost of excavating the sediment and disposing of it at $170,000.
• Adding the section of Church from Washington to Central to the city’s snowmelt master plan, a move approved by the City Council in March. The original project design did not include snowmelt. That adds another $380,000 to the project cost, Plockmeyer said.
• Adding brick pavers on Church between Main Avenue and Washington to match Main, Elm Street and Cherry Street, an additional $140,000 cost. City officials said removing the pavers from the project would undermine consistency with the city’s downtown district design.
• Ornamental street lighting, which was not included in the original estimate but is considered standard for reconstruction in the downtown district. That adds another $145,000 to the project cost.
• Contingency – the original estimate did not include contingency funding. Plockmeyer said the city typically carries a 10 percent contingency for projects of this size, which translates to about $819,000 for Church Street. He expects most of the contingency to go unspent, but carrying it is important for addressing conditions that come up during construction that haven’t been budgeted for.
“Each of these elements supports community priorities such as maintenance of existing assets, all-season walkability, and a consistent downtown streetscape,” Plockmeyer wrote in a memo to the council. “Additionally, standard contingency funding was added to the project to align with best practices for projects of this scale.”
The council agreed to go along with Plockmeyer’s recommendation to address the street reconstruction cost overrun in part by using $400,000 out of its general fund surplus from the 2024-25 fiscal year and another $200,000 from the personal property tax stabilization fund. It also agreed with his recommendation to hold off on the remaining cost gap until the 2026-27 budget process.
Could the project have been canceled because of the higher-than-expected cost? Plockmeyer said no. He said because the contract had already been awarded for the portion from Central to the Clean Water Plant and the city had accepted the MDOT grant funding for the Central-to-Washington portion, cancellation was not an option. He added that any attempt to adhere to the original budget would have required reducing the project scope, which he said would not have been consistent with past projects such as the roundabout at the city’s western gateway.
Construction on the portion of the project from Central to the Clean Water Plant is expected to begin in January and has a scheduled completion date of June 12, 2026. The segment in Zeeland Cemetery will be completed in May and work in the road cannot begin until March, project engineer Alan Pennington of Moore and Bruggink wrote in an email to the city earlier this fall.
The MDOT-funded portion of the project, from Central to Washington, has a scheduled start date of June 2 and a completion date of Oct. 30, 2026, Pennington wrote.
Zeeland Record
The city of Zeeland won’t make any cuts to its project to rebuild Church Street from Washington Avenue to the city’s Clean Water Plant, even though the street reconstruction portion of the project will now cost close to $1.1 million more than what the city had budgeted.
The City Council Monday unanimously approved a recommendation from Assistant City Manager Kevin Plockmeyer to affirm the full scope of the Church Street project, which now has a total estimated price tag of $9.1 million, and direct staff to plan for adjustments in the city’s 2026-27 budget to bridge the funding gap.
The city had earlier this fall established a $4 million budget in its municipal street fund for the street reconstruction portion of the project, based on cost projections from its engineering consultant, Moore and Bruggink.
However, two separate bids, focused on the project’s two phases, came in at a total of $5,092,036 - $3,044,155 for the portion from Central Avenue to the Clean Water Plant, and another $2,047,881 for the section from Central to Washington. The final amount for the Central-to-Washington section came after a $905,662 Michigan Department of Transportation grant was applied.
“We can’t do the Washington-to-Central piece if we don’t do the Central piece to the Clean Water Plant,” Plockmeyer said. “This was a both/and type of project. We have to do both of them.”
In addition, the city expects to spend $1,092,750 of its water fund and $724,168 from its clean water fund for the Church Street project. Zeeland Township, which is helping to fund upsizing the sanitary sewer line between Washington and the Clean Water Plant, is expected to contribute $1,285,384 as its pro-rated share toward the project, according to a memo from Plockmeyer.
The city had begun design work on the Church Street project in 2023 with the idea that construction would take place last year. But that idea was put on the shelf in place of the Taft Street reconstruction that was necessitated by water main failures on Taft, Plockmeyer said.
Plockmeyer attributes the higher-than-expected bid prices in part to seeking bids later in the season than usual.
“We were pushing to get this design out the door. We were obligated with MDOT to the last day possible … in order to make sure we secured the $900,000 of the grant funding. But then there were things that we added along the way – some scope items that we put in, I would say last-minute, and didn’t quite get the full budgets until we had the project in front of us,” Plockmeyer said.
Among the items that got added to the Church Street project, Plockmeyer said, included:
• More than $400,000 in additional storm sewer costs, including the addition of an 18-inch drain tile that was included to address groundwater issues and reduce dewatering challenges during installation of major storm and sanitary sewer lines.
• Dredging of the detention pond at the Clean Water Plant, which was not included in the original cost estimate. Plockmeyer said the pond, which collects stormwater sediment and supports irrigation at the nearby Zeeland Cemetery, is nearly full. The city estimates the cost of excavating the sediment and disposing of it at $170,000.
• Adding the section of Church from Washington to Central to the city’s snowmelt master plan, a move approved by the City Council in March. The original project design did not include snowmelt. That adds another $380,000 to the project cost, Plockmeyer said.
• Adding brick pavers on Church between Main Avenue and Washington to match Main, Elm Street and Cherry Street, an additional $140,000 cost. City officials said removing the pavers from the project would undermine consistency with the city’s downtown district design.
• Ornamental street lighting, which was not included in the original estimate but is considered standard for reconstruction in the downtown district. That adds another $145,000 to the project cost.
• Contingency – the original estimate did not include contingency funding. Plockmeyer said the city typically carries a 10 percent contingency for projects of this size, which translates to about $819,000 for Church Street. He expects most of the contingency to go unspent, but carrying it is important for addressing conditions that come up during construction that haven’t been budgeted for.
“Each of these elements supports community priorities such as maintenance of existing assets, all-season walkability, and a consistent downtown streetscape,” Plockmeyer wrote in a memo to the council. “Additionally, standard contingency funding was added to the project to align with best practices for projects of this scale.”
The council agreed to go along with Plockmeyer’s recommendation to address the street reconstruction cost overrun in part by using $400,000 out of its general fund surplus from the 2024-25 fiscal year and another $200,000 from the personal property tax stabilization fund. It also agreed with his recommendation to hold off on the remaining cost gap until the 2026-27 budget process.
Could the project have been canceled because of the higher-than-expected cost? Plockmeyer said no. He said because the contract had already been awarded for the portion from Central to the Clean Water Plant and the city had accepted the MDOT grant funding for the Central-to-Washington portion, cancellation was not an option. He added that any attempt to adhere to the original budget would have required reducing the project scope, which he said would not have been consistent with past projects such as the roundabout at the city’s western gateway.
Construction on the portion of the project from Central to the Clean Water Plant is expected to begin in January and has a scheduled completion date of June 12, 2026. The segment in Zeeland Cemetery will be completed in May and work in the road cannot begin until March, project engineer Alan Pennington of Moore and Bruggink wrote in an email to the city earlier this fall.
The MDOT-funded portion of the project, from Central to Washington, has a scheduled start date of June 2 and a completion date of Oct. 30, 2026, Pennington wrote.
