Public work is bid on documents, awarded on a stated basis and paid against a schedule of values, and the contractor who reads those three things closely is the one who finishes without a dispute. The northern Front Range has plenty of public ground to read about. The state's I-25 and Mulberry interchange project covers I-25 mileposts 269 to 271, cites flooding concerns and aging infrastructure, and lists bridge replacement and flood mitigation among its benefits. Design funds were secured in September 2022, and the project page estimated 30 percent design in early 2026, 60 percent in early 2027 and final design in early 2028.
That timeline is a useful lesson for every municipal owner we meet: public projects are long, funded in pieces and subject to change. We build the water, sewer, storm drainage, sidewalk, curb and flatwork portions that cities, towns, districts and airport commissions put out to bid, and we price from the bid documents with the quantities written down. We tell an owner what a bid item includes, what it excludes, and what we assumed when the plans were silent.
Many municipal owners in this area face the same physical problems: river corridors that flood, older utilities of uncertain location, and tight rights of way in historic districts. The trade crews work in those conditions with care, and we look for opportunities to coordinate with utilities and energy companies whose lines share the street.
Flooding is the common thread. Four days of heavy rain in September 2013 flooded Loveland along the Big Thompson River, closed roads and collapsed sections of US 34 toward Estes Park. Estes Park now has a required freeboard standard of one foot, and a report on the same flood noted that every building with structural damage was outside the mapped floodplain. In Fort Collins, the Cache la Poudre River is subject to sudden, destructive floods, and the city still experiences periodic flooding from it.
The lesson for public works is that storm drainage, culverts and channel crossings are the infrastructure that decides whether a town reopens quickly. We build storm drain installation and culverts and headwalls with that in mind, with bedding, joint seal and backfill compaction recorded as if a flood were coming, and with outlet protection at headwalls that can take a fast, silty flow.
Public work usually follows the owner's standard specifications and details, plus any state department of transportation requirements where the work touches a state highway. A utility trench in a city street needs a right-of-way permit, a traffic control plan and a restoration standard for the pavement, and the inspector is typically the owner's employee on site every day. We read the standard details for pipe bedding, trench width and cover before we price, and we submit materials ahead so they are approved before the trench opens.
Fort Collins treats the 2024 International Building Code with local amendments as current for permits submitted on or after April 1, 2026, and any vertical work we do on a city facility is reviewed under it. Public water and sewer extensions follow the utility's standards, which usually require tests that we witness with the inspector: pressure and disinfection for water, air or deflection tests for gravity sewer, and compaction tests at lifts.
City streets are tight jobsites. The Old Town historic district in Fort Collins covers roughly 26 acres and is overlaid by a city-designated district with design standards, so a sidewalk or a utility patch there may have to match historic scoring patterns, color or finish. We ask the city for the standard early and sample the finish before pouring a block of sidewalk, because a mismatched panel is hard to remove and tearing it out is expensive.
Traffic control is a cost and a safety item at once. We stage lane closures to fit the owner's traffic plan, keep driveway access for businesses, and phase work so no more street is open than the crew can restore in a day. Where a project passes a school or a hospital, we also coordinate delivery times with the operator so construction trucks do not meet ambulances or buses. Our ADA ramps and accessible routes work follows the owner's standard details and is checked for slope and detectable warnings before pouring.
The public is closer to the work on a municipal job than on any other type. We fence trenches, plate crossings and cover openings overnight, and we keep pedestrian paths open and ADA compliant around the work. The trade crews hold a daily safety talk, with trench protective systems and a designated competent person for any excavation deeper than five feet, and we map overhead and underground utilities before digging.
Underground utilities are the main hazard on a street. We locate and pothole existing lines before we cut, we hand-dig near gas, electric and fiber, and we log depths for the owner's record drawings. Documenting what we find helps the owner's next project as much as ours.
We take municipal work across the region, from Estes Park, where a canyon road and a mountain elevation of 7,743 ft shape every schedule, to the I-25 corridor near the Mulberry interchange and the airport that Loveland and Fort Collins own together through a commission. We also price utility and street work in the Weld County towns along US 85 and State Highway 14.
A highway resurfacing project that ran from May 1 to December 1, 2017 on State Highway 60 between US 287 and Milliken, at a cost of $5.5 million, illustrates the seasonal nature of public work. Contract windows are tied to the construction season and the owner's budget cycle, and we plan crews and materials around those windows.
Municipal packages often combine pipe, structures and surface restoration. A water main replacement may include water main installation, services reconnected to each lot, new fire hydrants and a concrete restoration of curb, gutter and sidewalk. A drainage project may add inlets, manholes, a headwall and a detention basin. We price each package as a complete scope with the restoration included, because an owner cares about the street being reopened, not just the pipe being installed.
Schools and hospital districts are public owners in their own right, with their own procurement. For those buyers we maintain a separate approach, described under schools and healthcare owners, and where districts and cities share a project we coordinate the two.
Tell us which owner, which bid date and which standards apply. We will review the documents with you and return a priced, clarified bid.
We take off every bid item from the plans, check the quantities against the engineer's estimate and price each unit including bedding, trench safety, traffic control and restoration. Unit prices on a public job are binding, so we are careful about items where the plans leave the depth or the soil condition uncertain. We note exclusions in our bid clarifications.
Yes, with the permits the owner and the regulators require. Work near a river needs a stormwater plan, sediment control and, in some cases, a floodplain permit, and we schedule it for the low flow season. We also hold a flood response plan: material removed before a forecast storm, and an emergency procedure for the crew.
Public owners commonly require bid, performance and payment bonds and insurance certificates, and we confirm the exact requirement from the bid documents before we price. We do not describe bonding capacity in marketing copy, so ask for it at bid time and we will provide the documentation the owner requires.
We phase the work block by block, keep driveway access with plates or temporary ramps, and notify frontage owners before each phase. Concrete work on a storefront sidewalk is scheduled so that the cure period overlaps nights and low-traffic days, and we fence the pour so customers walk around it, not through it.
It is common, as the Mulberry interchange page shows, where design was funded in 2022 and construction funding had not been identified as of August 2024. We help owners phase packages so that utility relocations, drainage and enabling work can go out for bid when funding is available, and we share quantity take-offs for planning-level estimates.