ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Superstructure replacement of a bridge at Belmont County Road 10 in Blaine may be delayed after the Belmont County Board of Commissioners opened the sole bid for the work on Wednesday.

Ohio-West Virginia Excavating of Powhatan Point bid $1,927,521.75 on the job.

County Engineer Terry Lively said his office had estimated the cost at close to $1.2 million. He said 80 percent of the cost was to be paid with federal funds administered through the Ohio County Engineers Association and the Ohio Department of Transportation.

“The bid was way over the estimate, almost 59 percent over the estimate. I’ve sent the bid results to ODOT to see what our next step needs to be with that, whether they want us to rebid,” he said. “Sometimes they come up with additional money, but we’ll see what they want to do.”

He said he had expected the county’s 20 percent match to be about $240,000, with an inspection costing about $130,000.

“That’s the big bridge down in Blaine,” he said. “That’s a pretty big project for us.”

“What they’re going to be doing is removing the deck and the beams and reusing the old abutments — they’re fine — and setting new beams and pouring a new concrete deck and railing,” he said.

Lively said the bridge dates from 1950 and is 155 feet long.

“It’s a pretty good-sized bridge,” he said, adding it is very well-traveled.

Lively initially had hoped for the project to start after July 1, when the funding will be available, with mobilization in July and a completion date in April of next year. But he said construction this year most likely will be delayed.

“It’s going to get done, it’s just a matter of when and for how much,” he said, adding more will hopefully be learned in subsequent commissioner meetings.

He said other bridge repair and replacement projects are on the horizon.

“This program was introduced last fall, and I applied for this and got this funded for this year. Next year we’ve got another one coming, same program with the 80/20 split, and it’s coming to Belmont County Road 4 — Glenn’s Run. That’s going to be another bridge,” Lively said.

He expects the cost of the CR 4 project to be in the $1.2 million range.

He said another county bridge project was funded for Fiscal Year 2026, which runs from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. This project will cover a bridge in Wheeling Township.

“Then we do have some smaller bridges that we’re working on. We just finished one on Trough Run in Pultney Township, just last week,” he said. “We’ve got a couple more in the pipeline that we’ve got materials ready to go, and right now we’re busy with a wall repair on Deep Run or we would be working on the next bridge already.”

Lively said the summer is expected to be busy.

“That’s just the bridge projects. Of course we’re getting geared up for our big paving project next year,” Lively said, adding that 17.3 miles of roadway across Belmont County are expected to be paved beginning after July 1 of next year.

A $2 million grant has been received, and Lively’s office is putting aside a $1.25 million match.

“A lot of culvert replacements are happening this year because of that. We’ve got a lot of slide (Federal Emergency Management Agency) projects left over from 2018/2019 and we’re doing a lot of those this year. It’s a big list. There’s a lot of projects happening all over the county.”