Tryon seeking more bids for planned road paving projects

TRYON — With town officials getting little response from local contractors, Tryon will look to cast a wider net in an attempt to find additional bidders for this year’s planned road paving work.

Tryon Town Manager Zach Ollis updated the town commissioners during their meeting Tuesday evening on the cost estimates officials had received thus far for five roads in the hopper for possible paving work this year. Ollis reported that the town has had trouble contacting many of the companies they had reached out to in recent weeks to provide pricing for the road repairs, with only one so far providing bids.

According to Ollis, Darrell Price, with Mill Spring’s Price Paving & Grading, gave the following estimates for paving work:

• Cleveland Road, $48,900

• Hogback Mountain Road, around $75,000

• Carson Street, $67,000

• Carolina Drive, $54,000

• Beaver Street, $28,132

Of the other companies the town reached out to for estimates, four have not submitted bids, despite officials’ repeated attempts to contact them. Another company provided a bid for $150,000 for multiple roads, but did not provide quotes for each individual road when asked, Ollis said.

The town manager said he has asked Tryon Street Maintenance Supervisor Jody Morse to begin to look for contractors outside the area for bids, “seeing as how we couldn’t get anything done in-house,” Ollis said.

“Obviously, we are upset we couldn’t get a variety of quotes,” he said. “[Morse] is going to see if we can get contractors from the Greenville, Charlotte [and] Asheville area to come look.”

Commissioner Crys Armbrust asked Ollis if town officials had contacted Trace and Company — the Mountain Home-based contractor that recently installed new sidewalk downtown as part of the final phase of the town’s Streetscape project — for a quote. The town manager responded he did not believe they did, but he could add the company to their list of potential contractors.

Ollis said the town had planned to decide which streets on the list to pave once officials had gotten a solid price figure, but the commissioners could prioritize ahead of time which roads should get done this year, if they chose. The town could add more streets to the list as well, if requested.

Tryon has budgeted $80,000 this fiscal year for street repairs and repaving, $65,000 of which coming from state-funded Powell Bill money and another $15,000 coming from the town’s general fund.