MARSHALL — Bids for a resurfacing project on several Marshall streets came in more than $100,000 lower than estimated, Marshall city staff said this week. But Marshall City Council members were still left with the question of whether to take advantage of the favorable bid by adding more streets to the project.

“These are prices that we haven’t seen for a few years, and we think it would be wise to include the alternates this year,” said Marshall Public Works Director Jason Anderson.

On March 4, the city received a low bid of about $464,000 on street mill and overlays that were estimated at a cost of about $622,000.

In discussion at Tuesday’s Marshall City Council meeting, council member James Lozinski said he thought the city should hang on to the savings from the lower bid.

“In the private sector, a private business would say ‘Great, we’re going to bank this money,'” Lozinski said.

In the end, the council voted to add the alternate streets to the resurfacing project, for a total cost of about $545,000.

On Tuesday, council members considered awarding a bid for a mill and overlay project on 10 different city streets. City staff said the estimated cost to resurface the streets came to about $622,000. Marshall’s 2025 capital budget included $650,000 for the project, Anderson said.

The list of streets in the mill and overlay project included Southview Court, DeSchepper Court, Commerce Circle, Mall Street, Jefferson Avenue, Jefferson Circle, Lawrence Street, Gray Place West, Marvin Schwan Memorial Drive, and South First Street.

Anderson said the city received two bids for the project The low bid was about $464,000, from Central Specialties, Inc. of Alexandria.

With the good bid pricing, the city could possibly include an additional four streets as alternates, Anderson said. Those would include Continental Street, Denali Street, Impala Court and Cougar Court. Including the alternate streets in the project would increase the cost by about $81,000, to a total of $545,736.

“We intentionally put these projects in light on the base bid, because we understand the desire of the council to respect the budget on this project,” Anderson said. “It is much harder to delete a street from a base bid, than it is to add some quantity once you do the bidding process.”

If the city did not resurface the additional streets, Anderson said, “It is deferred maintenance to some extent.”

Council member Craig Schafer said the council’s public improvement and transportation committee had not recommended adding the extra streets to the project. However, he said he had changed his view on the situation.

“This is too good to let it go by,” Schafer said of the bids. “We’re still $100,000-plus under budget.”

“I think that we have budget issues this year . . . This is a way we could shave 1% or 2% off our levy for next year, and I think we need to look at that,” Lozinski said.

Mayor Bob Byrnes said the question of doing maintenance on the alternate streets would still come back before the council next year. “We’re really just pushing that maintenance another year, and you’re actually creating more of an issue with the levy next year. This is currently in budget, under budget,” Byrnes said.

“We don’t know what we’ll get next year, and we know we’re getting a good price this year,” said council member John Alcorn. “I always hesitate to leave a project like that to chance.”

A motion to award the low bid and include the four alternate streets passed 6-1, with Lozinski casting the vote against.