FAIRHOPE – The Art Alley transit hub project will come before the Fairhope City Council in early 2022 after the city received two bids in its third attempt to solicit submissions, Richard Johnson, public works director, said.

“That’s kind of exciting news and I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it’s going to move forward in the coming year,” Johnson said.

Johnson said the city received two bids on the project. The lower bid was much less than the previous submissions received by Fairhope.

The project to be constructed near the public parking lot north of Fairhope Avenue and east of Church Street.

 “We’re still doing the paperwork,” Johnson told the Fairhope City Council at a recent meeting. “We did, for the third time, advertise and open the Arts Alley bid and we did get two competitive responsive bidders. I was working on the paperwork to go up through FTA today on that.”

The project is receiving funding through the U.S. Federal Transit Administration, city officials said.

“Hopefully, maybe first of the year, you’ll see that bid to award that, so we’re excited about that and the good news is the good news is about $400,000 less than the last time we opened bids on this and had only one responsive bidder,” Johnson said. “That’s always a good sign.”

In July 2021, Fairhope received on bid on the project. That submission was almost $1.44 million, which exceeded engineering estimates by at least $150,000, according to city reports.

Johnson said in December that the one bidder had to estimate expenses after not receiving information from subcontractors. He said the new bids were submitted after contractors had received information from the subcontractors.

“This gave them time to finally get a response from their electrical subs and tighten their number up,” Johnson said of one bidder.

He said both companies have done business with the city and have done good jobs in the past.

The transit hub is part of a city plan to create an Art Alley, downtown in the block between Fairhope Avenue, Church Street and Section Street. planned as downtown’s latest enhancement. Project supporters said in earlier meetings that the alley could serve as a major walking and gathering place for people during events such as the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival or strollers walking through downtown.

The site is a five-minute walk to the edge of downtown and 10 minutes from Mobile Bay.

Among the plans for the site would be to build a transit hub for Baldwin Rural Area Transit System shuttles and location for pedestrians to gather in the center of town. The county transit system now has a hub east of downtown on Fairhope Avenue near the Satellite Courthouse.