Agenda - Council Work Session - 03/30/2010

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extremely flexible and responsive to address staff concerns and are more than qualified to perform under this contract. Funding: The engineer's opinion of probable construction costs is $3,350,000. The total bid from W. Gohman Construction Company came in at $2,814,535.62 (over $500,000 below the estimate), and the remainder of the bids were fairly well grouped around $3,500,000. W. Gohman has stated that they intend to honor their bid, and there was no reason for the drastic differences from the other bids other than the fact that structural concrete work is the type of work they excel at and that is what a majority of the work is within this park project. They are able to perform most of this project in-house, and have supplemented their team with subcontractors from within the area to the extent possible. The March 2"d "dashboard" for RTC funding has $3,000,000 allocated for the construction of East Meandering Commons Park. Please be aware, that in addition to the construction dollars outlined above there are certain other soft costs that must be realized within the total budget for this park, including material testing and inspections (approximately 1.5% of contract), specialty inspections for structural and pond liner review, and on-going maintenance obligations. The material testing and inspections will be handled through the City's existing contract with Northern Technologies, Inc. and City staff. Staff is currently requesting quotes for the required structural and liner installation reviews, and it is estimated that this work will cost approximately $15,000 - $25,000. Maintenance activities will be accomplished by City staff, and an overview of the implications that this park will have on existing staffing is attached for review. One additional item that has been excluded from this project that will require additional funding is the resolution of the existing wetland permitting within the TOWN CENTER. At a HRA meeting on February 23, 2010 there was no clear consensus on whether the wetland classroom shown in the construction documents should be built within the park. We are also awaiting a response from the Lower Rum River Watershed Organization on our proposed approach to resolving the outstanding permit requirements. Absent those decisions staff felt it was appropriate to remove the vegetative establishment until such decisions are made. This wetland area within the park is substantially complete and only needs vegetative establishment and monitoring, and it is estimated that completing this work would cost approximately $15,000. City staff has spent numerous hours on this project performing topographic surveying, plan preparation, project bidding, and it is anticipated that much more time will be required for contract administration and inspections; therefore it would seem appropriate to account for staff time in the overall project budget. Staff is proposing a 10% overhead on this project to cover staff time, specialty inspections, material testing, consulting services already performed by URS and Close Architecture, and the previous purchase of the park plans from URS. Based upon staffs recommendation of a total project cost of $2,484,469.71 this contingency totals $248,447, which would break down as follows: $60,000 (consulting services already performed and plan purchases) $60,000 (additional specialty inspections and material testing) $128,447 (staff time in plan preparation, bidding, inspections, and contract administration) $248,447 Combining all items above results in a total project budget, as recommended by staff, in the amount of $2,732,916.71. If Council chooses to perform any additional contract alternates or work within the park