One Lake Wylie road project got its bid. Others, and a new project list, await.

One Lake Wylie road project is coming closer to completion as work continues to get more projects done.

On Feb. 20, York County Council awarded a $1.75 million construction contract for an intersection realignment at S.C. 557, Griggs Road and Bate Harvey Road. Granite Contracting will do the work. The project is part of Pennies 3, approved by voters in 2011.

The county has almost $635,000 budgeted for the project and will have to take the remaining amount from the S.C. 72 Pennies project. The S.C. 557 intersection ran over cost due to unexpected costs when the state transportation department charged for construction engineering and inspection, relocating utilities and a two-year delay in construction.

The intersection, right beside Griggs Road Elementary School, will take a skewed intersection and make it perpendicular. The project should be completed this year.

Lake Wylie has several more Pennies projects coming. An engineer has been hired and right-of-way acquisition started for the $25.7 million multi-lane widening at S.C. 274 and 279. Completion is expected in 2020. That same year, a $4.3 million multi-lane widening of S.C. 557 should finish. Shoulder widening on Paraham Road should be done this fall.

All are Pennies 3 projects. A $500,000 intersection at S.C. 49 and Campbell Road from the same campaign already is complete.

The Feb. 20 contract award came in the same meeting as lengthy discussion on how to avoid future cost estimate issues. Pennies 4 comes up for public referendum Nov. 7. An appointed commission will finalize a list of road construction projects this spring, with Council needing to approve it before the public decides whether a cent sales tax should pay for it.

While elected officials and civic leaders largely praise the Pennies program, the first of its kind in South Carolina when York County held the first vote in 1997, it hasn’t been without problems. Mainly, projects running over cost estimates and certain ones getting bumped from one campaign to the next to make up the difference.

“We’ve had several audits of the Pennies program — Pennies 1, 2 and 3 — and all of them said the same thing basically,” County Manager Bill Shanahan told Council. “The cost estimates at the beginning were incorrect. So no matter what you do, you started wrong.”

New staff is in place now, which Shanahan believes will help get better estimates for Pennies 4. A major concern involves utilities. Construction planning can be 70 percent complete before utilities are contacted about the relocation they will need to accompany it. Now, staff wants to work closer with utilities much further in advance.

Utilities now are providing estimates on a list of roads being considered by the Pennies 4 commission.

“Any information we can get now better helps us estimate for projects on Pennies 4,” said Patrick Hamilton, director of the Pennies program.

Comporium , York County Natural Gas, the City of Rock Hill and York Electric Cooperative were represented at the recent Council meeting asking for a policy change — Council deferred it to study it more — allowing Hamilton to work more directly with utilities prior to designing new road projects. Jimmy Bagley with Rock Hill said those utilities could have about $40 million in utility relocation costs based on the roads in early discussion for Pennies 4.

Having former utility costs and plans earlier, Bagley said, would save taxpayers and help put more money toward construction.

“They could take all that into consideration,” Bagley said. “In many cases we’ve seen situations where the road could have been shifted a little bit for $300,000 as opposed to asking for $5 million worth of utility relocation expenses. I think that’s just good sound management.”

The issue isn’t overly simple. Council is working on which groups would pay for which parts of utility relocations as part of its policy.

“What we can’t do is pay 40 percent of our Pennies money to utilities and right-of-way, which is what happened with Pennies 3,” said Councilwoman Christi Cox. “We’ve got to stop that.”

The Pennies 4 estimate recently rose from $225 million to $275 million in revenue. The projection is for how much money the cent tax will generate in seven years. One of many figures where experts make their best and most educated assessments, but still are estimates.

Council members say bringing in more information on utilities, earlier, can help firm up figures in Pennies 4.

“Anybody that can lend something to the conversation and gives us a little more educated guess, anybody that can just lend some more knowledge to the whole thing is very important to this,” said Councilwoman Allison Love.

This story was originally published February 24, 2017 at 3:28 PM with the headline "One Lake Wylie road project got its bid. Others, and a new project list, await.."