The Sedona City Council unanimously approved a $438,009.33 construction agreement with Arizona Public Service for work on the Forest Road extension project on March 11.

The agreement specified that APS will remove 658 feet of temporary overhead lines and 1,742 feet of underground lines and install 6,170 feet of new underground lines along with four switching cabinets.

“The temporary installation was under budget at the beginning of the project. APS has partnered in repurposing existing conduit that helped to stay within budget as we moved down to the permanent installation,” Director of Public Works Kurt Harris said. “The permanent installation is a little bit over budget, but overall this is within the power budget that we’ve outlined for this project.”

The agenda bill for the contract stated that the planned work “was anticipated and included in the project budget.”

“We had estimated roughly $400,000 for this work on the part of APS,” Assistant City Engineer Bob Welch said. “They were able to recognize that the existing trench was in rock and qualified for some shallow cover and avoided us having to put in place a couple of extra pull boxes and some additional conduit, which saved us roughly around $170,000.”

“Part of this project is going to provide extra power supply to the whole Uptown area,” Harris added. “It’s putting every thing underground as well.”