Bid complications could mean delays for boiler system at Veterans Memorial

A problem with a bid on the project to renovate the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building will complicate reaching a project goal to get permanent heat in the place by Thanksgiving, Mike Jager, the city's veterans memorial manager, said Monday.

Both the Veterans Memorial Commission and the City Council this week are slated to reject the single bid for the job of installing permanent boilers in the Vets Building on May's Island because of what Jager said were “incomplete bid documents.”

Jager said the commission had expected bidders to break out costs for three different parts of the overall bid, the cost of boilers, the cost of a new boiler room and the cost of a new room so the Vets Building can move its electrical and mechanical systems up and out of the way of any future flooding.

Jager said the commission wants the costs for each part of the project identified because it must use different funding sources for different parts of the project.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, for instance, will pay to move electrical and mechanical system up to a new flood-proof room. However, FEMA won't pay for matters related to the flood-ruined downtown steam system, which the Vets Building had been connected to, Jager noted. State Jumpstart funds, he said, will be used for those costs.

Five firms attended a pre-bid meeting on the part of the renovation project related to the boilers. But only one firm, Unzeitig Construction of Cedar Rapids, bid on the job. Unzeitig's bid, Jager said, was about $500,000 above the $1 million estimate.

Jager said the commission and the city now plan to seek new bids, a process that will delay the boiler piece of the Vets project by at least 30 days.

The commission wants to get heat established in the building by Thanksgiving. FEMA has paid for a temporary climate system in the building the past two winters and isn't interested in doing it again this winter, Jager said.

The plan is to renovate the building in three phases: the Second Avenue office tower; the building's auditorium and other large spaces; and the First Avenue part of the building.

The City Council has said it would like to be able to return City Hall to the building in February or March.