Jim Thorpe Borough Council on Thursday awarded a street paving contract worth nearly $245,000 and approved plans to put additional sections of the municipal parking lot out to bid.

New Enterprise Stone and Lime Company submitted the low bid of $244,997.06, which covers a list of borough streets as well as a portion of the municipal complex parking lot.

The streets included in the base contract are portions of Mauch Chunk Lane, the 300 block of Center Street, Flagstaff Road, Silk Street/Fifth Street and 10th Street, along with a section of Germantown Road and part of the municipal parking lot.

With the contract awarded, council Vice President Mike Yeastedt moved quickly to the next question: Could remaining paving funds be used to extend the parking lot work beyond what the contract already covered?

After accounting for storm overtime costs already incurred this winter, a reserve for overtime heading into next winter, the cost of the borough’s new Vialytics road management software subscription and setup, and funds needed to replenish the salt and cinder supply, Yeastedt said what was left over appeared sufficient to expand the paving.

“The actual amount to do the paving is much less than what we put aside for the project, so the majority of the paving funds could be attributed to that,” he said of additional parking lot work.

Yeastedt described the proposed expansion as extending the paving line forward to the front of Memorial Hall — creating a large rectangle bounded by the old public service garage, Memorial Park, the borough building and the school district ball field.

“We basically move the line to the front of (Memorial Hall) from where it previously was going to end, just beyond what we would call the beer garden,” he said. “It will move the line further in this direction.”

The section from that new line down to the police station would remain for a future phase, he said, once additional funding is secured.

Yeastedt explained why he wanted the expanded lot paving done concurrently with the streets contract rather than as a separate, later project.

“Ideally, the whole thought here was not to have seams in it,” he said. “It would be nice for the two sections to knit properly. And then the only seam we would have would be this line from here down when we do the police section.”

Borough Manager Maureen Sterner said the calendar appeared to allow enough time to get bid specifications prepared and advertised for the parking lot expansion while still being able to award the work in time for it to be done alongside the street paving.

“There’s an extra week in there, so we lucked out,” she said.

Council approved the motion to put the additional parking lot section out to bid with a requirement that any successful bidder complete the work concurrently with New Enterprise’s street paving.

Separate from the expansion, Police Chief Joe Schatz pressed council to address the lower section of the parking lot, the area near the police station, which he said has deteriorated to the point of posing a safety risk to officers.

“Something needs to be done about that lot down the bottom,” Schatz said. “Either I or one of my officers is going to fall down there — the way it was plowed, how it sits, and bad drainage. It’s terrible.”

Schatz said he was not asking for the area to be paved immediately, but for something to be done in the near term as a temporary fix.

Yeastedt noted that millings, material used to level and stabilize unpaved surfaces, are “expected to become available from both the Center Avenue water main project and the new paving contract itself.”

“The bid specs with New Enterprise do specify the borough has the ability, or obligation, I think, to get millings,” council President Connor Rodgers said. “Perhaps we can try and get them to spread them here.”

Sterner said she is also recommending council retain $25,000 of the liquid fuels fund for salt and cinder supply heading into next winter rather than folding those funds into the general paving budget.