PORT ANGELES — A safety and repaving project planned for 8th Street in Port Angeles will have to wait.

The city council agreed to reject bids for the project this week after the two bids received came in significantly over the engineer’s estimate for the project. The lowest bid from Interwest Construction, Inc., exceeded the estimate by nearly $700,000.

City Manager Nathan West says these high bids are becoming common due to a number of factors.

“I absolutely think it has a lot to do with supply and demand. Contractors are extremely busy, and so while they’re bidding on it, they may not necessarily have the capacity to take on the work and so they have to have additional charges for hiring more people things like that as well. And I think some of the supply chain issues are still out there and obtaining some of the materials necessary has become a lot more expensive,” said West

He says the city will have to rework the bid package.

“And ultimately we’re going to have to go back and reassess and get it back out for bid. But I can tell you, our engineering division works so hard to look at equivalent bids elsewhere. They look at comparable prices and really set the tone and get the bid documents prepared in a great way, but sometimes things come in over, and this is one of those situations where we’re going to have to reassess,” West told Newsradio KONP.

The city secured a Washington State Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) grant of just under $1.5 million and is matching about $44,000, bringing the total project cost to nearly $2 million.

The project includes a 2-inch asphalt mill and fill of 8th Street from Lincoln Street to the Tumwater Bridge, two bike lanes, a Polyester Polymer Concrete (PPC) overlay for both 8th Street bridges, and ADA-compliant sidewalk curb ramps.