Myrtle Beach projects delayed as contractors play hard to get

Myrtle Beach is encountering a tight market for public projects, as contractors decline to compete for work or quote amounts far over budget.

“It’s tough out there right now,” assistant city manager Ron Andrews said.

Andrews said the pool of contractors has been reduced since the economic downturn in 2009 made many firms go out of business. Bill Oliver, the director of public works for Myrtle Beach, said Monday that the the narrow group of contractors is not only less competitive but pickier, forcing the city to rethink how it doles out work for public projects.

“When we don’t have enough money to fund them, we either have to hold them or trim them and peel off the layers of the project and see where we can do work with our crews,” Oliver said.

So far, the city has had to postpone a walkway along Withers Swash from 3rd Avenue South to Broadway Street, budgeted at $350,000 but bid at $600,000.

Oliver said the city is “revisiting” the project to try to control costs.

Oliver said companies also prefer to work on bigger projects and will decline projects like intersection improvements the city had planned to complete near Carver Street and Pine Island Road. The city budgeted $50,000 for those projects, Oliver said, and the closest bid came in at $200,000.

As cities become more desperate for contractors, a company may also wander further to complete more lucrative projects. Oliver said one of the city’s utility contractors has recently been doing work in Greenville, North Carolina.

However, a high volume of public work projects encourages growth, Oliver said.

“I hope it continues,” he said. “It’s good for the economy.”

The stress on city budgets and construction time-lines has also extended to North Myrtle Beach. The city had to postpone intersection and sidewalk work at Bay Street between 2nd Ave South and 6th Ave South, in addition to other sidewalk work along part of Wiley Avenue and Ocean Boulevard.

That project was budgeted for $200,000 and was bid at $260,000, city spokesman Pat Dowling said.

The projects will be re-bid in January.

When he spoke with The Sun News last week, Andrews said the contractor squeeze has made it difficult for the city to budget accurately for larger projects as well, including renovations to the Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium.

That project is estimated at around $6 million, and will be open for bids in December. The work will include renovations to restrooms, locker rooms, the press box, seating and an expansion of one side of the track.

The project is particularly tricky, Andrews said, because work is scheduled to begin next year and must be finished before first high school football season in 2017.

“Until we open up Shaw (to bids), we think we’ve done a good job (estimating),” Andrews said. “We don’t ever know.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2016 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach projects delayed as contractors play hard to get."