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NILES — Downtown Niles parking lots in need of improvements will soon receive proper maintenance.

Niles City Council moved to accept the $354,461 bid from Chorba Asphalt Paving LLC for the 2024 Municipal Parking Lot Resurfacing Project.

According to city documents, there are eight city-owned parking lots that are within the downtown district that are experiencing pavement failure and need cold milling, resurfacing, and pavement marking. Preventative maintenance treatment would preserve the parking lots for another ten to fifteen years. 

Specifications were prepared and bids were opened on February 14th with four bids received. Each pay item and the associated quantities were bid per parking lot in order to keep the project within budget if desired. Chorba Asphalt Paving, LLC of Dowagiac, MI was low bidder at $354,461 for all eight parking lots.

The initial motion called for servicing four of the eight lots before Councilmember John DiCostanzo amended the motion to service all eight due to the contractor being local as well as funds being available. City Administrator Ric Huff added that the city has approximately $185,000 of interest earned on ARPA that had not been programmed.

“I think it would be a lot more practical for us to do all of them while we have a contractor here in town,” he said. “I believe we had in front of the funds to be able to accomplish this properly.”

DiCostanzo asked the city to consider adding more handicap parking to municipal lots, expressing he was approached by a community member who is frequently frustrated with their inability to have access to the downtown businesses due to a lack of handicap parking. Public Works Director Joseph Ray added that it would not cost much more to add handicap spaces and that he would look into it.