Lincoln County commissioners this week awarded a bid for construction of a new OSU Extension Office Building at the fairgrounds.
They also agreed to make modifications to the jail expansion/renovation project, opting to scrap the expansion but go ahead with the renovation.
Their actions came during a special meeting Tuesday evening.
They awarded the bid to Henson Construction Co. for $1,547,000 which was the base bid with the fire sprinkler system as an alternate with a cost of $39,000. That would total $1,586,000.
Henson’s bid said time to construct it would be 42 weeks.
As part of the motion, commissioners also included that if Henson Construction Co. no longer wanted to do it they would go with A&K Construction whose base bid was $1,598,000 and the sprinkler system alternate was $38,200.
Commissioners at their Oct. 7 meeting discussed bids that were opened recently on both of them.
Commissioners are up against an approaching deadline of Dec. 31, 2024 in which any ARPA funds they plan to use must be encumbered by that date.
ARPA funds were approved in 2021 during COVID-19 and provided through the American Rescue Plan Act to state, local, county, tribal and territorial governments to provide assistance with various projects.
Lincoln County was allocated a total of around $6 million in ARPA funds.
The lowest base bid came in at $100 per square foot higher than was estimated, it was pointed out.
The direct construction costs of the lowest base bid for the jail project was more than $6.1 million and when professional services are added the total was over $7 million.
That’s around $3 million more than the estimated $4.1 million in ARPA funds that were set aside for the project.
Lincoln County Sheriff Charlie Dougherty had said there would be a meeting in the near future with BKL, the engineer, and Flintco, the project manager.
Commissioners Tuesday evening authorizedBKLtoredesigntherenovation and go out for bids. Commissioners agreed to pay the engineer $5,500 due to their time and work on the electrical and mechanical portions of the renovation.
“We do have to do the remodel because of those sewer lines that have to be replaced,” Dougherty said.
Dougherty has said the original jail was built in 1969 but there are sewer issues that must be addressed. “Every time a plumber is called it’s $10,000. There are two sewer lines under the north and south pods of the jail and we have old John Wayne bars.
“We’re addressing these. If we change just one thing we must adhere to today’s standards,” he stressed.