The apparent low bidder for the Staples Highway 10 ‘turnback’ project this summer is the same contractor who did the downtown Brainerd reconstruction project last summer.

Bids will not be official until approved May 18 at the Todd County Board meeting. Bids were opened May 10 and are now being analyzed by the Todd County engineer’s office Barring major miscalculations, the low bidder appears to be Tom’s Backhoe Service of Brainerd. The Tom’s Backhoe bid of approximately $4,092,000 is well under the engineer’s estimate for the majority of the project which was $4.5 million.

The Staples City Council received the above information on Tuesday, May 11, from City Administrator Nate Mathews, at the council’s first session of the month. The council was meeting at noon for the first time at that new time slot. For this summer all council sessions on the second Tuesday of each month will be convened at noon.

Tom’s Backhoe would do the underground portion of the project, replacing water, sewer and storm sewer lines where needed. Replacing the roadway and related work would be performed by Tri- City Paving of Little Falls, as a subcontractor to Tom’s Backhoe.

Other sub-contractors would include Holden Electric of Bemidji for the electric work connected with the project, Mathews said.

The highest of bids came in a about $5.9 million, Mathews said.

The project is expected to get started at the end of May, following a pre-construction meeting tentatively planned for May 28. It is expected to take all summer and possibly need some time in early 2011 to finish, depending on the weather conditions in the fall.

In another matter, Jerel Nelsen, the city’s EDA executive director, told the city council that the purchase of the former Carter Ringer building by the National Joint Powers Alliance has been finalized. Also known as the Pine County building, the structure on the east end of Staples has been vacant for many years.

“NJPA now owns it,” Nelsen told the city council.

NJPA is expected to use the site for its own office expansion. Whether it uses the existing building or demolishes it will be determined after the building is examined by a strucutural engineer.