AUSTINTOWN — The township is reviewing formal bids for a large-scale paving project slated to begin as soon as the weather clears.

Township Administrator Mark D’Apolito opened sealed bids from six contractors at Monday’s regular trustees meeting for a roughly $1.5 million road resurfacing project that will address between 2.8 and 3 miles of roads in Austintown.

“The project will cover 65 different locations,” D’Apolito said. “We’re bouncing around a bit and catching a lot of things. We have some long strips of road, but also some smaller parts that just need to be addressed.”

The longest portions that will be resurfaced are Darbyshire Drive from Kirk Road to Warwick South (2,160 feet), South Beverly from the Huntmere joint to Mahoning Avenue (1,725 feet), South Edgehill from Mahoning to Huntmere (1,730 feet), Birch Trace from Woodland Trace to Penny Lane (1,650 feet), Rhode Island From Bexley to Nantucket (1,610 feet), and Rita from Ray to the cul-de-sac (1,560 feet).

Shorter sections include 300 feet of Impala from Daytona to Elmwood, 270 feet of Yorktown from Fitch to Charleston, and 140 feet of Potomac from Forest Hill north to the dead end.

The project also includes sections of Charlestown, Country Green, Rutland, Atlanta, North Inglewood, Argonne, North Yorkshire/Beverly, North Beverly, Thatcher, Westminster, Central, Mulberry Run, Cranberry, Athens, London, Madrid, Rome, Depauw, Sterling, Pine Trace, Plumbbrook, South Wendover, Cumberland, Western Place, Southward, South Edgehill, South Navarre, Barrington, Barrington entrance, Woodridge, Willowcrest, Tulane, Purdue and Westgate.

The low bidder, as of Monday, is New Galilee, Pa.-based Lindy Paving with a bid of $1,428,911. The other bids, in order of price, are: Hiram-based Geauga Highway Paving, ($1,823,060), Stow-based Karvo Construction ($1,795,839), Akron-based Barbicas Construction ($1,713,047), North Jackson-based Shelly & Sands ($1,539,912), and North Lima-based RT Vernal Paving and Construction ($1,498,233).

D’Apolito said the township will most likely award the contract at the trustees’regular staff meeting at the end of the month. He said all bids appear to have arrived with the appropriate bonding documents and addendums, and he has delivered them to Austintown’s consulting engineer, Dave Bakalar, for review.

D’Apolito said some streets will be milled first while others will simply be repaved.

“It just depends on what the crown of the road and situation calls for,” he said.

The project, paid for largely by an Ohio Public Works Commission grant and Mahoning County’s 0.25% sales tax, will start as soon as the weather breaks and asphalt plants open, D’Apolito said.

“We’re just going to issue an order to proceed immediately following the preconstruction meeting and then just hold off on having that meeting until the conditions are appropriate,” he said.

He said anything not covered by OPWC and sales tax funds will be paid from Austintown’s road department fund.

Mahoning County Engineer Patrick Ginnetti also gave a presentation to trustees on Monday about the importance of the sales tax, which is coming up for renewal in November. Both Ginnetti and township officials said at the meeting that OPWC funding alone would not be sufficient to accomplish the paving projects they have both completed in the past four years.

Read more about the county’s sales tax and its role in road and bridge maintenance in this weekend’s Vindicator.