Marco Island to begin Yellowbird Street improvements Monday

City of Marco Island will begin work Monday to improve Yellowbird St., according to a news release sent June 1.

Utility workers and contractors will place marker flags in locations within the right-of-way, according to the release. These flags can't be removed until the project is completed and the city asked residents to inform private landscapers not to move or mow over them.

It is the homeowner's responsibility to mark private irrigation lines placed within the right-of-way, according to the release.

"Please do your best to accurately identify these lines, as the city is not responsible for damage to private irrigation lines in the public right-of-way," the city wrote in the release.

On April 6, City Council authorized the city manager to execute an agreement for construction engineering and inspection services to replace the utilities within Yellowbird St. for an amount not to exceed $116,735.

Hole Montes Inc. is in charge of providing shop drawings, responding to requests for information and providing assistance with change orders during construction, among other responsibilities, according to its proposal to the city.

On Feb. 18, City Council authorized the city manager to award a contract for the reconstruction of Yellowbird Street to Wright Construction group for more than $4 million.

The first estimate for the project was done nine years ago for $3.5 million, said Public Works Director Timothy Pinter.

Pinter told the Marco Eagle the design and contract award process took twice as long as it normally does.

"We hired Hole Montes to do the design of the roadway portion of Yellowbird initially," he said at the time. "Part of that work was to do a pavement evaluation."

"It came back that we need to do a full-depth replacement."

That is when the city discovered that the utilities would be affected, according to Pinter. 

"So [...] the roadway portion of the design stopped because we couldn't advance any further and the [...] Utility division hired Hole Montes to do the utility relocation portion," he said. "Then we combined the two (designs) and put them out to bid."

The project will include redoing the narrowest portion of the sidewalk, upgrading it from four feet wide to five feet wide.

Since 2018, trucks weighting over 10,000 pounds are not allowed on Yellowbird. 

Contact Omar Rodríguez Ortiz at omar.rodriguezortiz@naplesnews.com, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram as @Omar_fromPR. Support his work by subscribing to Naples Daily News.