“Contractors are not being able to have full crews or crews of sufficient size to complete the task for that day, so we are having a bit of slippage there,” Deputy City Manager Don Magner said.
However, the city booked enough extra days into project timelines that these intermittent delays are not expected to impact estimated completion dates, he said.
“We had enough contingency time built into the projects that we can still finish,” he said.
Some of the major public projects underway include infrastructure improvements on Main Street as well as the fourth phase of construction at the Richardson Public Safety Campus, both scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2021.
Also under construction is Fire Station No. 3 in Canyon Creek. That project should be complete in two months, Magner said.
The lack of cars on Main Street has had the reverse effect of making construction more efficient, Magner said.
“We have seen significantly less traffic, which makes things like mobilization, temporary shutdowns and rerouting all more manageable,” he said.
The city is also in the midst of analyzing potential redevelopment opportunities around Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Arapaho Center Station. That project remains on track because it is still in the planning phase, Magner said.
DART is conducting a bus service study that will help inform decisions made in Richardson. The transit agency is having to transition its public input sessions to a virtual platform, which could impact the project’s timeline.
As of now, DART’s study is estimated to be complete by the end of this year. But if things get pushed back, Richardson’s own study will inevitably be delayed as well, Magner said.
“We are going to need some data from that study to complete our study,” he said.
Unlike other cities that are capitalizing on a lack of traffic by ramping up work on roads, Richardson is not bidding out any new projects, Magner said. This is an intentional decision to protect the city’s budget and staff during these uncertain times, he said.
“The last thing we want to do is launch on a new project, have a street department be impacted by COVID and then have a project where we’ve torn up a major road and we are unable to complete it because we have manpower issues,” he said.
All projects that were already underway are continuing as planned, he added.
As of now, things are on track, but the potential for development delays is not completely off the table, Magner said. If shelter-in-place orders continue longer than anticipated, there may be some projects affected.
“If we continue to have these intermittent delays, that could have a compounding effect, and then, we might be adjusting to add another 30, 60 or 90 days to the end of the project,” he said.
