Rosewick Road project exceeds budget ... again

Friday, July 11, 2008

On Wednesday, the Charles County commissioners approved the transfer of $432,000 from other projects to fund additional work on Phase 2 of the Rosewick project. The project’s original price tag was $5.7 million.

Most of the money , $282,000, was left over from the county’s nearly complete third phase of Rosewick Road, which runs between Radio Station Road and St. Charles Parkway. However, $150,000 of the money came from Phase 3 of Western Parkway, which is planned between Pierce Road and Mattawoman Road in Waldorf.

Western Parkway Phase 3 will soon go out to bid for construction, and county officials are hoping that bids for the job will fall below the $5.9 million budgeted for the project, saving the money swallowed by Rosewick Road.

Officials also warned that Rosewick could require more money as construction progresses. Workers are digging pits into the soil to determine if it will support the weight of the roadway and replacing the inadequate soil if necessary.

‘‘We anticipate more” requests for money, said John Stevens, chief of capital services. ‘‘It was a lot worse than the [original test] borings showed.”

Charles County Fiscal Director Deborah Hudson said the Rosewick project will need more funding, but said, ‘‘They just don’t know how much at this point.”

The majority of Wednesday’s transfer will be used to expand a stormwater containment pond for the road, which engineers determined would have to be larger to function properly.

‘‘Was this anticipated, unanticipated or what?” asked Commissioner Gary V. Hodge (D). Stevens said the engineers tried to keep the pond size to a minimum, but ‘‘we realized that it had to be the original size.”

Commissioner Reuben B. Collins II (D) asked when the project would be completed, and Stevens estimated that it would be finished in April 2009, two years after the original target completion date.