Iowa City wastewater plant demolition bids much lower than expected

IOWA CITY - Despite the rising cost of construction projects, plans to demolish Iowa City's now-closed north Wastewater Treatment Plant managed to come in several million dollars below the original estimate.

On Tuesday, the Iowa City Council will vote on awarding a contract for the wastewater plant demolition project to Minnesota-based Veit & Company, Inc.

Veit & Company's roughly $2.05 million bid for the project is less than half the $5.5 million estimate for the project, which was drafted by a private engineering firm.

Veit & Company's bid was the lowest of five received, with the highest still roughly $300,000 below the estimate.

'We're very pleased they came in where they did,” Ben Clark, Iowa City senior civil engineer, said of the bids.

That said, Clark noted that while bids for construction projects tend to come in at or higher than estimates these days due to a high demand for contractors, demolition projects are often a wild card.

'With demolition it's a little bit hard to estimate,” Clark said.

Factors in pricing depend on which company bids - specialty contractors tend to bid lower - and the manner in which demolition will take place - moving and disposing materials comes with an added cost.

For the wastewater project, Veit & Company, which specializes in waste management, will use much of the crushed materials created in the demolition process as backfill for the land.

'We'll minimize hauling, we won't haul any more material to the site,” Clark said, adding that recycling and salvaging materials will be key.

The University of Iowa's recent demolition of the old Iowa City Water Plant, which sits west of the North Campus Parking Ramp and behind Burge Residence Hall, saw similar bid results.

The project, which makes way for a new residence hall, was estimated at $1.9 million and ultimately contracted to Veit & Company last year for $969,000.

As with the wastewater project, all bids for the old water plant demolition project came in below the estimate.

If approved by the council, work could begin yet this month on demolition of the wastewater plant, with seeding of the land planned for this fall, Clark said.

The demolition is the first of several phases planned to turn the area into the Riverfront Crossings District wetland and park area.

'In the end, it will convert it to basically a grassy field that will set the stage for stream bank work and the subsequent park project,” Clark said. 'We're basically making a blank slate.”

The city will bond for the project and take advantage of the Iowa Flood Mitigation Program, which allows cities to use future state sales tax growth, to pay off the bonds.

The Water Treatment Plant in the southern portion of Iowa City has been expanded since the north plant closed.

l Comments: (319) 339-3175; mitchell.schmidt@thegazette.com