Main Street bids exceed estimates by $1 million
Bids received for Main Street McMinnville construction were more than $1 million higher than what was expected, city officials said.
A $3.5 million engineer’s estimate was publicly advertised for bidders March 17. The two different base bids opened at city hall Thursday were about $4.8 million for construction alone, with only $40,000 separating the two bids.
“It’s over $1 million more,” Mayor Royce Davenport said Friday in response to the bid opening. “And we’ve already found some areas where there are extreme differences – double, triple, and quadruple what the estimate was, so there’s got to be some misunderstanding.”
The estimated total cost of the project was about $5.1 million in 2001, according to the project’s engineering firm, EG&G. Funds committed to the project were estimated at $4.8 million a year later after a major grant was announced. Two weeks ago, a city official confirmed the $4.8 million figure was still “close” to what officials had in mind.
However, there is a major difference between total costs and the cost of construction bid upon. Engineering, design fees and other fees make up that difference.
City Administrator Herb Llewellyn said Thursday officials plan to talk to engineers and explore options. Paul Roszak, the local project manager from EG&G, also agreed officials would explore options. He declined to speculate on the reason bids were so high.
City leaders can reject the bids, some officials said in response to questions about what action the city can take. And although not set in stone and no public meetings have been announced yet in relation to the bids, it is a possibility.
“That’s my personal opinion until we vote, but there is nothing that requires you, once you take bids, to go ahead,” Davenport said. “I think our attitude right now, and I haven’t canvassed everybody, but I believe most of us want to go ahead but we need to figure out how we got these error bids and re-do it and try to make sure everybody understands what we want.”
Another option, according to Llewellyn, is to accept a current bid and see if it can be negotiated to a price that is feasible. He said, as an example, that bids came in too high for the Barren Fork Greenway project but costs were negotiated from a point where the project was considered impossible, to a point where the city could afford what was planned.
Main Street McMinnville director Chris Wilson, who was hired as the organization’s third director this winter, said a potential delay would not change the mission of refurbishing downtown to make it more appealing, which is the organization’s driving goal.
Vice Mayor Patti Nunley also expressed disappointment with the bids. She said initial speculation of the bids being too high ranged from the project being split into different portions, to lack of competition. In any case, she said the bids were not acceptable at this time.
“There would have to be some major re-thinking on our part because the funding we have in place would not cover these bids,” Nunley said.