City might rebid some Convention Complex work

CEDAR RAPIDS - The city may seek new bids for mechanical and electrical work on its Convention Complex project because the bids received Monday were far costlier than had been estimated.

The lowest mechanical bid was 45 percent higher than what the project budget expected, while the lowest electrical bid was 87 percent higher, emphasized Chris Nations, a principal with construction manager Frew Nations Group, in his report to the City Council.

The cost for mechanical, electrical and general contractors was estimated at $41 million of the $75.6 million project. However, the three bids opened Monday totaled $46 million - $5 million over budget.

The city's pre-bid engineering estimate for the project's mechanical work was $7.3 million with the low bid coming in at $10.68 million. The estimate for electrical work was $4.4 million with the low bid at $8.246 million.

The good news, both Nations and council member Chuck Swore said last night, is that the low bid for the project's general contractor came in a little more than $2 million under the $29.3 million estimate.

The council will hold a special meeting next Monday to award the general contract - the apparent low bidder, Miron Construction Co. of Cedar Rapids, submitted a bid of $27.087 million. The Frew Nations Group, city staff and the Infrastructure Committee that Swore leads will then have to decide what to do about the electrical and mechanical bids.

Nations said awarding the general contractor contract should allow the project to move ahead on schedule and get structural steel in place by winter.

Swore, a retired former vice president and general manager at Acme Electric Co., suggested last night that more must have been added to the project specifications after the pre-bid engineering estimate was made. He said the contractors' bids were likely right, the estimate wrong.

Nations said the engineering team that Frew Nations Group used before the bidding made a final adjustment to the project's bid estimates in mid-July.

Nations pointed to the Paramount Theatre renovation project and noted that bids for electrical and mechanical work were each under 15 percent of the total construction budget. In the Convention Complex bids, the low bid on Monday for mechanical work put its costs at 28 percent of the project cost and the electrical at 20 percent of project cost, which Nations said was confusingly out of line with the Paramount project.

Council member Don Karr, a retired plumbing and remodeling contractor, said the city needed to seek a new rounds of bids on the Convention Complex's mechanical and electrical work because Monday's bids were too out of line with the project estimate.

Nations said the scope of the project might need to change to get the work more in line with the apparent prices in the marketplace.