Wright City Hall bids rejected; Bids were farout of budget
By Adam Rollins, Record Staff Writer
Posted 11/7/19
Wright City’s plans to renovate a building to be used as a new city hall, expand its police station and build new city park facilities have run into a setback. “Your bids came in twice as high as …
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Wright City Hall bids rejected; Bids were farout of budget
Posted
By Adam Rollins, Record Staff Writer
Wright City’s plans to renovate a building to be used as a new city hall, expand its police station and build new city park facilities have run into a setback.“Your bids came in twice as high as what you can afford to do,” project manager Jim Schuchmann told the city’s board of aldermen. “I think at this time you’re going to have to set those bids aside, reject them.”That’s just what city leaders did, rejecting bids from Demien Construction, T.S. Banze and Martin General Contractors. The lowest of those bids, from Demien Construction, was $2.17 million, but there were errors in the bid calculation, city officials said. The highest bid, from Martin General Contractors, was $2.53 million. The bid from T.S. Banze was $2.18 million.Wright City’s budget for the project is about $1 million.Plans for the project include a base bid along with five alternates, which are additional pieces of the project that can be put off for the future.The base project includes three phases. The former Assembly of God Church on Westwoods Road will be renovated to be used as a new city hall, a baseball park with two fields will be built adjacent to that facility, and the current city building will be renovated for the sole use of the Wright City Police Department.Contractors submitted segmented bids for the base project and the five alternates. Even the base bids exceeded the city’s budget, however, with the lowest, Demien Construction, at $1.5 million.Despite not receiving satisfying bids, Schuchmann said he is optimistic the city still can get much of what it wants.Schuchmann was hired at the beginning of May to manage the project. He said the bids were so high in large part because much is unknown about the internal condition of the former church. Contractors submitted their bids assuming the worst about what they would find when they opened up the walls.“Where we got in trouble with this is there was just too many uncertainties,” Schuchmann said. “After doing more assessment and demolition in the building to expose some of the hidden situations, I think you’ll see much better numbers come in on the bids.”That’s likely to mean another month or two will go by while Schuchmann tears into the building himself, before revising the information available to contractors and asking for new bids.The thought is that if contractors know they won’t have to do major work on something like electrical wiring or insulation, cost estimates will go down.Schuchmann said contractors the city had spoken to indicated the former church was their main worry. Renovating it into the new city hall is the most expensive portion of the base project, followed by the new baseball park and then the police station renovation.Schuchmann said he hopes to have contractors do a more extensive cost breakdown within the base project to have a better understanding of where the city can reduce costs.“The biggest thing we’re trying to do is to make sure the citizens get the best product they can for the dollars they’re investing into it,” Schuchmann said.As for the alternates, by far the most expensive would be a concession stand at the new ball park. City leaders were cautioned that the new concession stand likely wouldn’t fit in the current budget, and so far that’s true. Bids for that facility were about $244,500 (Demien Construction), $271,500 (T.S. Banze) and $299,000 (Martin General Contractors). But, as project engineer Kurt Daniels has said, the plans don’t go bad, so the city can leave that facility for the future.The other four alternates are as follows:• Replacing the roofs on the former church and/or the current city building. Officials have said this isn’t a priority. Bids for both roofs were about $45,700 from Demien Construction at the low end and $47,000 from Martin General Contractors at the high end.• Renovating the second floor of the new city hall. It will otherwise be left as-is for now. T.S. Banze had the low bid for this alternate, about $41,300. Martin General Contractors was high with $78,000.• Concrete paving for about 3,000 square yards of parking space. Asphalt paving is included in the base bid, but concrete is preferred because it’s more durable. It’s also more expensive, costing an extra $132,000 if T.S. Banze had gotten the contract, and more than $179,000 extra if it had gone to Demien Construction or Martin General Contractors.• Four dugouts for the two new baseball fields. This alternate had the highest variance, with a $24,000 bid from T.S. Banze, $78,000 from Martin General Contractors and $150,000 from Demien Construction.City Treasurer Karen Girondo said the high bids on the total project weren’t a major surprise. During previous meetings, representatives of engineering firm Cochran and architectural firm JEMA predicted a tight budget.“They told us we probably wouldn’t get everything we wanted,” Girondo said.For now, she said the city will get a clearer understanding of what work the former church needs and develop a time line for going back to bids.The construction and renovations will be paid for by a $1.5 million bond issue approved by voters in April to alleviate crowding in government offices and provide more park space. The 10,000-square-foot Assembly of God Church building and attached 4.5-acre property were purchased in September for $320,000.Updates on the projects frequently are included during Wright City Board of Aldermen meetings. The board holds public meetings the second and fourth Thursday of each month, 6:30 p.m. at Wright City Hall. The next meeting is May 25.
