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Belleair Beach plans project to bury utility lines

 
Published Sept. 20, 2018

BELLEAIR BEACH — Utility undergrounding in the Bellevue Estates neighborhood will go forward, despite a significant increase in resident assessments. The City Council voted recently unanimously to approve higher assessments and related conditions, giving its go-ahead for the project to continue.

Council members had learned earlier that new undergrounding cost numbers are nearly 50 percent higher than what was estimated earlier this year. At that time, the affected residents were told the undergrounding could cost a little over $11,000 per household. That number has now jumped to more than $16,000.

The cost increase now totals more than $600,000, and the overall project cost is nearly $2 million.
Despite the increase in cost, Councilman Glenn Gunn, who lives in the Bellevue Estates neighborhood and was elected on a pledge to get the undergrounding done, said he was confident the involved residents wanted the project to be completed.

City Manager Lynn Rives blamed the unexpected price jump on understated project cost estimates from the previous engineering firm hired to manage the project. The city is now looking for a new engineering consultant.

Work on the project is expected to start in early 2019.