The Mattoon City Council approved the hiring of Curry Construction to add all-new chlorine and ammonia feed systems to the city’s potable water pump station and ground storage tank located at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon. The project was bid for $328,643. Work is expected to start in (month) of 2020 and should be completed by (month, year)
The city is preparing to take the first step toward funding the construction of sewer lines that will connect to the new satellite facility on the north side of town.
The City Council is set tonight to vote on a preliminary bond ordinance as part of the city’s application for an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency loan for this construction project. The new piping will serve the combined sewer overflow treatment facility on North Sixth Street.
Public Works Director Dean Barber reported in a memo to the council that the final bond ordinance and loan agreement will be presented later this year at the same council meeting as the contractor’s bid for the construction work.
“No debt will be approved until we know the bid price. No bids will be accepted until we approve the financing,” Barber said.
According to the proposed ordinance, the piping construction will cost up to $12.5 million. The ordinance authorizes the city to issue sewer system revenue bonds for this project. The IEPA is expected to purchase the bonds to fund the construction. The city will pay back the IEPA over time with sewer system revenue.
Barber said the $12.5 million figure is the engineer’s cost estimate for the piping construction. He said the original estimate for the entire satellite facility project was $20 million — $10 million for the facility and $10 million for the piping. He said the final cost for the facility was $6 million.
“I still anticipate that the bids will be closer to $10 million than $12.5 million,” Barber said of the piping construction. “However, I need to authorize the higher amount. We can borrow less than the amount on this ordinance. We cannot borrow more than is authorized in this ordinance.”
The satellite facility is designed to prevent untreated sanitary sewer water from overflowing into Riley Creek during rainfalls. IEPA mandated a few years ago that Mattoon take steps to control sewer system overflows. The city also funded the construction of the satellite facility by issuing sewer revenue bonds as part of an IEPA loan agreement.
In other matters tonight, the council will consider rejecting the low bid for upgrading the water treatment plant’s supervisory controls and data acquisition system. The project would be awarded to the next lowest bidder, Durkin Equipment for $224,000. R.E. Pedrotti had the low bid of $206,261, but Barber said in a memo that this contractor was disqualified for not completing two previous Mattoon projects on time.
Flex-N-Gate is doubling the size of its plastics plant in Danville and adding at least 100 new workers.
The News Gazette reports the auto parts maker, which has 118 employees at its plant on Lynch Rd., will add 60,000 square feet.
The company owned by billionaire University of Illinois graduate Shahid Khan will get $1.2 million in state tax incentives to keep the $20 million project in Illinois.
Mattoon-based Curry Construction has been hired as the general contractor for the Danville project. Construction should start within the next month to two months.
New injection molding machines should be installed by next September.
Jobs available will be for plastics operators and assembly operators.
The News Gazette reports Flex-N-Gate parts are in two-thirds of all cars and trucks sold in the United States.
URBANA — The long-vacant site of a former hotel is finally being put to use.
After the former Hanford Inn was torn down in 2015, truck service center JX Enterprises bought the lot and is expanding from its current location north of Urbana on U.S. 45.
The new site at 2408 N. Cunningham Ave, U., will be four times bigger than the existing one, assistant service manager Chris Wargolet said, and will be more visible near the intersection of Interstate 74.
“It’s long overdue,” he said. “We have two shifts here, and it’s tough. (It’ll be) a nice new facility. Everything’s going to be new.”
A building permit was issued in May for the $3 million project, and the company plans to invest more than $4.35 million in the new location, Marketing Manager Lisa VerHalen said.
The new location is expected to open in October, Wargolet said.
Right now, about 21 people work there, Wargolet said, and “that’s expected to double.”
JX mostly sells and fixes Peterbilt trucks at its Urbana location.
Based in Wisconsin, JX has 23 locations in the Midwest.
JX will own its new location rather than lease, Wargolet said, and is moving because “the industry itself is growing.”
Since 2015, the tonnage hauled by American truckers has increased more than 15 percent, according to the American Trucking Associations’ Truck Tonnage Index.
“This facility will be four times larger, include extended hours and, as the demand increases, possibly add a third shift,” VerHalen said. “JX will be adding 20-30 vital jobs to the surrounding area.”
Urbana Mayor Diane Marlin praised the project.
“We’re very pleased that JX has chosen to locate in Urbana,” she said. “This location on Route 45 and I-74 is well-suited to businesses serving the automotive and trucking industry.”
It’s been a long road for the city to get to this point.
The hotel closed in 2010 after the city condemned it for fire code violations.
At one point, the hotel was evacuated after the Urbana Fire Department found that multiple rooms didn’t have smoke detectors, and that the existing smoke detectors didn’t work.
Two years later, the city received a court-ordered demolition order, and in 2014, sold the property to Kelly Dillard of Dig It to demolish the building.
Before it was a Hanford Inn, the hotel was a Travelodge, Regency Inn, Thrift-O-Tel and a Park Inn International.
It opened in the 1970s, and for a while, the University of Illinois football team used to stay there before home games.
“It used to be a nice place,” said Brandon Boys, Urbana’s economic development manager.
But he said it fell into disrepair.
“There had been so much water infiltration, the suspended ceiling was coming down,” he said, and looked like stalactites hanging down.
“The property had really degraded,” Boys said, so he was glad to see the construction on the new project.
“It’s a happy ending for the parcel to go back to productive use,” he said.
We captured a bird’s-eye view of improvements to the city of Monticello Wastewater Treatment Plant. (Drones are awesome, don’t you agree?)
The plant pumps and system were causing several bottlenecks in the facility, keeping it from performing to its full potential.
Parts of the facility, built in 1926, were original. Due to the aging infrastructure and more stringent Illinois Environmental Protection Agency regulations for nutrient removal, it could not be reused for biological treatment.
The team at Fehr Graham has designed a new treatment system to alleviate the bottleneck and process enhancements that will ensure the facility will be able to treat wastewater with ease.
