A crumbling retaining wall that is threatening a home in Lansford may soon be repaired.

On Thursday, the Carbon County Commissioners opened bids for the Brimble Wall reconstruction and street improvement project. The county is handling the bids because Lansford is using Community Development Block Grant funds toward the project.

Stoney Lonesome Excavating of Summit Hill submitted the apparent low bid of $384,900. The other bidder, Kobalt Construction Inc. of Tobyhanna, submitted a bid of $577,790. The bids were then turned over to the county planning office for review and a contract will either be awarded or rejected in two weeks.

This is the second time the project has been bid out. The first time, one company submitted a bid for $398,105, which was rejected because Lansford didn’t have the money to cover the cost.

Since then, the borough has secured $313,000 in Multimodal Transportation Funding through the Commonwealth Financing Authority and Lansford gets between $74,000 and $78,000 in CDBG funding through the county.

Brimble Wall is a stacked stone and concrete retaining wall that supports Brimble Alley between West Ridge Street and Snyder Avenue. Pieces of the wall have been crumbling and is threatening a home at 362 Snyder Ave., which sits below the wall.

Other projects

The county also opened bids for Jim Thorpe’s water/sewer improvement project along Cherry Avenue. The project is using CDBG funds it received for fiscal years 2020 and 2021.

Four bids were received with the apparent low bidder being Barker & Barker Paving and Excavating of Bethlehem. That bid came in at $72,250. Other bids ranged from $88,850 to $98,496.

These bids were then turned over to the county planning office for review and will be either awarded or rejected in two weeks.

Commissioners also ratified the advertisement of a public hearing notice regarding Jim Thorpe’s CDBG funds for 2022 and 2023. The borough is asking to move a total of $164,296 from housing rehabilitation projects to the water treatment plant equipment upgrades phase 1. The hearing was held this past Wednesday.