Commission rejects city admin building construction bids

by Amber Gillenwater mdtnews@mydailytribune.com Gallipolis Daily Tribune

GALLIPOLIS During a regular meeting on Tuesday, the Gallipolis City Commission passed an emergency ordinance rejecting bids for the construction of a city administration building.

According to Gallipolis City Manager Randy Finney, three bids came in for the construction of the project, at prices all above the engineers estimate.

The lowest bid came in from Brenmar Construction at $760,000, followed by a bid of $762,000 from Kinsale Construction and a bid of $766,000 from Hoon, Inc.

Finney reported that the bids were expected to come in at approximately $500,000 to $550,000.

Were $200,000 over what we thought we would be, so we need to make some decisions about where we need to go from here, Finney said.

Finney further reported that an increase in materials, prevailing wages and an increase in work for local construction companies may be to blame for the high bids.

Weve been seeing increases in materials, and I think the contractors are actually getting busier now. When we went out to bid last year [on the city justice center], they were desperate for work, and Kinsale took a rate just to keep his people busy, I think. Now people have jobs, and they have people working at different places and you can see the bids are very competitive, Finney said.

The city has plans to construct the administrative facility that will house the citys utility office, city managers office, tax office, code enforcement/parks and recreation and city auditors offices on city-owned property in the 300 block of Third Avenue.

Public hearings in regard to the construction of the facility were held earlier this year and the city was on schedule to begin to construct the facility soon after awarding of a bid. However, Finney also reported on his concerns about the lot located next to Peoples Bank proposed to be utilized in the construction.

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Commission rejects city admin building construction bids