Published: July 02, 2008 12:48 pm            

Council looks to reject bids for sports complex

The future of the Effingham Sports and Recreation Center looked uncertain Tuesday evening as the Effingham City Council rejected all bids received for the project in June.

City Engineer Steve Miller shared a letter from Hance, Utz and Associates, the architects working on the project. In it the firm suggested the best approach was to redesign and rebid the project.

“I feel that a good deal of the cost overrun is attributable to the volatility in the construction market. Obviously, the budget was greatly affected by outside influences over the last six months. I don’t feel that the scope of the project was out of line back in January 2008; but in order to meet the static budget, the only appropriate response is to reduce the scope of the project,” wrote architect William Utz, president of Hance, Utz and Associates of Mattoon.

He also said information from Reed Construction Data stated construction materials and market demand have increased 20.2 percent from January 2008 to April 2008.

One other option of scaling back the cost of the project, according to Utz’ letter, is to reduce items included in the original design and negotiate pricing with the low bidder. The sports center was bid out as a base project, with several alternates that could be added or deleted from the project.

By reducing the lobby space and parking area and leaving out the larger studio ice rink and fitness area, Utz said the cost of the facility could be cut down to $12,187,000, but he did not recommend that option.

“I feel the best approach is to redesign and rebid. It has been my experience that a negotiated budget of this scale would be difficult to manage and not yield the maximum savings that a competitive bid would provide,” he said.

Miller agreed with the architect’s recommendation to reject all bids, but he stressed the project needed to be evaluated.

Meanwhile, the council expressed concerns over the high sports center bids received on June 12. The lowest base bid received was $16,780,000 from Grunloh Construction of Effingham, more than $4 million over budget.

“If you can’t build it right, don’t build it. I would be very concerned if we can’t go forward very close to what we had planned,” said Commissioner Merv Gillenwater.

“The project is not dead. We’re in agreement that we want to build a first-class facility, but we can’t afford it,” Commissioner Larry Micenheimer said.

Commissioner Karen Flach was concerned over the costs involved with restarting the design and bid process.

“I felt like the bids coming in that far over was too much to handle at one time. I feel like we’re trying to build a Cadillac when we should be trying to build a Chevy,” Flach said.

The council did not make any decisions about how to proceed with the sports center. They plan to formally vote on a resolution to reject the bids for the sports center at the next council meeting.

Angie Faller can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 131 or angie.faller@

effinghamdailynews.com.