Delays for 2015 Construction

Fargo City Commission Talk Construction Season

A road construction project on the busiest road through Fargo already has many people concerned.

Delays in finishing projects last year has one city commissioner pressing for changes to make sure it doesn’t keep happening.

13th avenue south in Fargo will be seeing a face lift starting this April.

Nearly a mile of 13th will get a $10 million makeover. Last year, almost 70% of road projects in the area had to be given extensions because of problems like bad weather.

Store owners on 13th are getting a little worried seeing how others were affected by the delays on the 25th street “and” 19th avenue projects.

Owner Sweet Dream Confections Lee Paseka said, “We hope for the best, it’s thing that have to be done, we need to keep the infrastructure right for the city, but it does for the short term throw a monkey wrench into things .”

Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn suggests there was a lack of workers last construction season. He would like to see more workers and longer work days during construction season.

Commissioner Piepkorn said, “In western ND now, price of oil has gone down and we talked a little bit about that and so now I believe that you’re going to see the projects being bid more in Fargo and the prices are going to come down a little bit and I think the shortage will be reduced.”

Piepkorn suggests that contractors should receive incentives in completing city projects early instead of penalties for extensions.

Commissioners decided to brown bag the issue for now but do believe this is a concern that needs to be addressed in the near future.