Bid Goes Out On Trapelo/Belmont Repair This Week

They were crossing the t's and dotting the i's at the Board of Selectmen's Monday, Aug. 6, meeting as it signed contracts that will allow the state to put out to bid this week a $16 million contract to repair and reconstruct the entire length of Trapelo Road and Belmont Streets from the town lines of Cambridge to Waltham.

"We are 99 percent there," said a smiling Glenn Clancy, director of Belmont's who has spent the better part of a decade shepherding the plan to redesign, repair and repave the two-and-a-quarter miles of roadway running the length of Belmont, the busiest thoroughfare in town.

With all title claims resolved, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation – which is managing the project – will open bidding for the $16 million reconstruction in an request for proposal that will be issued on Saturday, Aug. 11.

Clancy said the bid process will take several month with the first shovels in the ground in the spring of 2013.

The selectmen's action today was to approve temporary construction easements on small slivers of land that the state – which is managing the project – required so it could widen the road. Belmont's Town Meeting approved the takings in April.

Today, the board accepted about 35 property owners who temporarily "donated" their property to the town in which they waived the rights to damages. The board also accepted land from the town's Housing Authority.

The 15 landowners who did not relinquish their rights to file for future damage claims will receive "a fair rental value" for their property, on average $300.

The board also accepted Clancy's plan to reduce the land from the owners of the Getty service station at the corner of Trapelo and Pleasant by half to just over 160,000 square feet, helping to keep down the cost of the project.

In total, Clancy said the town will spend less than the $100,000 approved by Town Meeting for the project.

The only possible remaining snag is at the opposite end of the roadway where Watertown must settle with three landowners to claim title on similarly-sized parcels. Clancy expects that to occur by the end of this week.