Trouble once again spawned for the Moscow Community Playfields Project, when bids for the construction of the district-owned property came in much higher than what city officials anticipated.
During the Moscow City Council meeting Monday, City Supervisor Gary Riedner reported that the results of the bids were not what the city was hoping for.
“Suffice it to say … we were not lucky enough to get conservative bids,” Riedner said. “The apparent low bidder came in at $2,970,000. Again, as I indicated, the base bid estimate, or the construction part of the project is $2,550,000. So, we are in essence between $400,000 and $450,000 short (on) money to take advantage of the base bid.”
Riedner reminded the Council that the base bid does not include the 12 amenities that the project design entailed, including dugouts, scoreboards and a storage shed.
He said the results of the bid were surprising, but project staff have been working with the architect to determine the reason for the bids.
“One thing we noticed on the bids, as they came in, is that almost all of the bidders — there were three responses to the bids — the subcontractors for almost all the bidders were the same, which is pretty strange,” Riedner said.
Riedner said the April 1 bidding date was not the prime time for project bids.
“The speculation is that there’s plenty of work out there. This project did not bid at a prime time,” he said. “Most of these contractors already have their work for the upcoming construction season. The prime, optimal time to bid at a project is October through perhaps mid-February, end of February.”
Riedner offered five options to the Council, including acquiring the additional money, looking for places to save and reduce the project or a combination of both options.
“And four — well, four could be abandon the project altogether,” Riedner said. “Five would be perhaps reject all bids and then wait and bid at a more opportune time.”
Councilmember Wayne Krauss expressed the Council’s disappointment.
“I don’t want to not go forward,” Krauss said. “I want to move forward, as fast as we can, as expeditiously as we can, but not recklessly so.”
Krauss said he couldn’t make any recommendations to the project staff, other than to discover what is going on and move forward.
Mayor Bill Lambert said the city needs to make the project happen.
“Folks, we need to figure out a way to make this thing work,” Lambert said. “And the project has got to be done and it’s got to be done in the proper fashion. We’re going to have to buckle down and do something on this relatively quickly. And if we ever work together, this is the time that we need to make it happen.”
The Community Playfields Project has been a work in progress since 1998. Funding has been a problem for the project in the past.
Andrew Jenson
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