New report attempts to compare costs of Rock Chalk Park with other city projects

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Lawrence officials have shed more light on how they have evaluated whether taxpayers got a good deal on about $11 million worth of infrastructure work at Rock Chalk Park that did not go through the citys normal bid process.

The new report paints a mixed picture, with some costs coming in below similar work elsewhere in the city that was bid, and other costs at Rock Chalk Park significantly higher. But Chuck Soules, the citys director of public works, said the numbers give him confidence the city was charged a fair price for the work.

The costs for infrastructure at Rock Chalk Park are generally found to be in line with other projects bid by the city, Soules wrote in the report, which looked at items like the cost of concrete, waterlines, sewer lines, light poles and other such items.

The report comes as city commissioners have opened the door to hiring an outside auditor to examine the costs of the infrastructure work, which was built by a firm led by Lawrence businessman Thomas Fritzel, who is the key private partner in the public-private partnership that built Rock Chalk Park.

The new report provides a glimpse at the difficulty an auditor might have in comparing costs for the project and others that were bid. The report calculated that the cost to build roads at Rock Chalk Park was about $151 per lane mile. It then compared that to the costs to build roads at VenturePark, the new industrial park on the east edge of Lawrence. That construction, which was similar in nature and was bid through the citys normal process, cost $160 per lane mile.

But upon closer review, Soules said the VenturePark figures include work to install storm sewers and also includes the contractors costs to mobilize equipment on the job site. The Rock Chalk Park project does not have those costs included. It wasnt clear what the comparable VenturePark number would be if the storm sewer and mobilization costs were removed from the total.

Soules department was responsible for reviewing many of the costs at Rock Chalk. He said his department sought to ensure that the city was getting a fair price based on what his engineers know about bid prices that are coming in for projects throughout the city. But he said the process is an inexact science because no two projects are exactly alike.

It is not meant to be apples to apples, Soules said. It is meant to give you a ballpark feel.

Heres a look at several of the figures included in the report:

Go here to read the rest:
New report attempts to compare costs of Rock Chalk Park with other city projects