City Council to approve 'surprisingly high' bids

CEDAR RAPIDS - The City Council is poised to award contracts for electrical and mechanical work on the $75.6-million Convention Complex project despite bids that city officials last week called surprisingly high.

The lowest bid for electrical work came in 87 percent higher than the city's pre-bid estimate and the lowest bid for the mechanical work was 45 percent higher.

Even so, the council has called a special meeting for 1 p.m. Thursday to discuss and vote on approving the electrical and mechanical contracts as well as the project's general construction contract. The bids for the general contract were lower than the city's pre-bid estimate.

Mayor Ron Corbett on Wednesday acknowledged that the Convention Complex project initially was thought to cost $67 million, a figure that jumped to $75.6 million once the city began detailed planning to actually build it.

However, Corbett said project watchdogs now should consider waiting until the entire Convention Complex project is complete to see if, in fact, the project comes in within the revised, $75.6-million budget.

Corbett noted that the city has purchased steel for the project for less than had been expected and that the demolition work on the site is costing less than had been estimated before bidding on that contract.

He said the project budget also has $3 million in contingency funds built into it and he said that only $7 million may be needed for furniture and equipment, not the $8.5 million that is built into the project budget.

Going out for new bids now would take another two months, may change little and cause project delays that could force the city to miss a deadline to have the U.S. Cellular Center arena back on line in time for the state girl's volleyball tournament in the fall of 2012, the mayor said.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz on Wednesday called the Convention Complex project a “big and complicated” one, and he said it is not surprising that bid prices and estimates might diverge, particularly since the project consists of building a new convention center and integrating it with the 30-plus-year-old U.S. Cellular Center arena next to it, which is being renovated as part of the project.

“We don't control the bidders,” Pomeranz said. “Our experts make the best estimates they can. Now we're in a situation where we're awarding (contracts) and we're going to have to do our best to control the cost of the project.

“I don't want to give the impression that we can guarantee a number that we're going to come in at. What we can guarantee is we're going to work hard, and if bids come in higher, we're going to look at ways to scale back. … I know the council is very concerned that this project stays under control.”

At last week's bid opening, the city's pre-bid estimate for the Convention Complex's general, electrical and mechanical contracts together was $41 million. At the time, each bidder submitted a base bid and then bids for alternate, add-on pieces to the project. Add-on bids typically are taken in hopes that base bids come in low enough to allow the city to also include some add-on features to the contracts.

According to the Thursday council agenda, the council is prepared to vote on the general, electrical and mechanical contracts with add-ons for a total cost of $47.63 million, or about $1.6 million more than total figure for the low base bids from a week ago, which were $5 million more in total than the city's base-bid estimate of $41 million.

If approved Thursday as now proposed, the project's general construction contract will go to Miron Construction Co., which has an office in Cedar Rapids, for $28,273,698; the electrical contract will go to Paulson Electric of Cedar Rapids for $8,437,635; and the mechanical contract will go to Modern Piping Inc. of Cedar Rapids for $10,917,000.