Lilac Lane resurfaced, council adds funds after project lands overbudget

Kenai’s Lilac Lane Roadway Project, completed last month, went nearly $50,000 over budget because of the extensive presence of bury pits — which required removal to protect integrity of the new road.

That’s what Kenai City Manager Terry Eubank told the Kenai City Council on Wednesday, explaining an ordinance that would appropriate an additional $49,837 to the project from the city’s general fund. He estimated that the total project cost was between $700,000 and $750,000.

The council in June appropriated around $638,000 when they awarded the construction agreement via an ordinance enacted by unanimous vote.

The project, undertaken by Peninsula Construction, involved remediation and reconstruction of Lilac Lane, located north of Kenai near Weaver Brothers and Kenai Peninsula Driving Instruction. Though engineering had identified bury pits — holes filled with debris during previous construction — that needed to be excavated, Eubank said Wednesday that “they were much deeper and much larger than what was anticipated.”

Without addressing the pits, Eubank said, the new road would fail in the future.

“The road is completed now,” Eubank said. “Paving is done. This provides the additional funding for us to do a change order with the contractor and get him paid for the work that they actually performed.”

Alex Douthit, a member of the council, said one such pit was in front of a property he owns — “it was an enormous hole they had to dig.”

Plans called for excavation up to 2 feet beyond the curb of the road, Eubank said. In some cases they went up to 15 feet beyond the curb.

He said that the result, exceeding the budget for the project, was “an extreme case,” unlikely to recur.

A full recording of the meeting and the text of the ordinance can be found at kenai.city.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.