Station bids a bit high (06/03/08)

Construction bids for combined fire and ambulance station outside of Dunkirk came in about $120,000 higher than what county officials expected.

Nine bids for the project were opened Monday afternoon for the building, which will combine the fire department and Jay Emergency Medical Service into one location in an industrial park just east of the city.

All the bids were well above expected totals for the 8,700 square foot building with the lowest base bid from Limberlost Construction Inc. at $613,749 followed by 3D Company Inc. at $627,900. Jay County received a $500,000 grant for the project, but will either have to trim the project or bear the additional costs along with Dunkirk.

Action on the bids was tabled Monday, in part because Commissioners president Milo Miller Jr. was not present. Commissioners Gary Theurer and Faron Parr opened the bids.

Soaring materials costs are a likely culprit for the deviation between figures. Jay County Community Developer Ami Huffman said builders had told her the cost would be about $60 per square foot, but the lowest bid fell in just over $70 per square foot.

"The concrete's going up a lot, that would make a difference," she said.

"Concrete's jumped rapidly, that would be why $60 a foot would go to $70 a foot because of all the concrete in it."

Although one option would be to shoulder the cost, Dunkirk and the county don't have an additional $60,000 each to toss toward the project. Community developer Ami Huffman said she would get in contact with Dunkirk's volunteer firefighters to see if they could donate to the cause from their fundraising stockpiles.

"We're going to have to come up with some extra funds to do it or we're going to have to cut back on the size of the project," said county engineer Dan Watson.

Watson suggested cutting part of the building, an additional bay that would be used for training or for housing a future fire engine if the town could obtain a grant for its purchase.

Removing the extra bay would cut about $100,000, bringing the total close to the $500,000 goal. If the extra bay is cut from the plans, the project would have to be re-bid.

But there are problems with the plan - one being that the need for additional space to add another engine may have been a major factor in securing the grant money in the first place. Huffman said she would look at the grant to determine if cutting the bay is a feasible option.

"(Dunkirk) needed one extra truck and they had no space for it and I used that in the grant to get points," she said. "You change the scope. If that gave us points in proving our need that got us funded, then does that take points away and we wouldn't have gotten funded?"

Another issue is timing as a contract must be entered before July 31 or else the town will lose the grant money. Either the money will have to appear or the plans will need to be altered, re-bid, and approved before the deadline arrives.

"If we're going to re-bid it, I have to have it under contract by July 31," Huffman said. "I'll have to re-bid it really, really fast."

The pressure to finish this project is on, because as of now, "both facilities (the current fire station and JEMS base in the city) are rotten," said Huffman.[[In-content Ad]]