City councilmen Tuesday voted unanimously to reject bids and re-advertise for construction on the Sen. Terry Brown Amphitheater.
The actions came on two votes, first to reject a bid from Gregory Construction for the project that city engineer and Neel-Schaffer vice president Kevin Stafford said was much higher than the project’s projected cost.
“The low bidder was about $1 million over where we hoped to be with the budget on this project,” Stafford told the council Tuesday night during a board meeting.
City officials broke ground on the amphitheater on The Island in December.
The amphitheater, named after the late District 17 state senator, is an approximately $3 million project. It will seat 3,500 people. Capacity will be split between space for 1,750 people in lawn and general admission seating, 1,083 permanent chair back seats, and room for 615 people in a flexible seating area in front of the stage.
The facility will also feature a 42-foot by 56-foot stage and seven food/beverage windows for concessions. It will have three entry gates, including ADA ramps and administrative facilities will include security, two ticket windows, first aid and event and janitorial staff facilities.
After rejecting the bids, Stafford advised the council to readvertise the project as separate projects. He said the city took a similar approach to build the soccer complex — using different contractors for seating, building, seating, fencing and so on — which saved about 10 percent on that project.
“It’s more complicated for those that are overseeing the project itself, but y’all will have us (Neel-Schaffer) and J5 here to be involved in your construction and that was not a problem for the soccer complex at all,” Stafford said.
Stafford also said the project is being scaled back to save costs. For example, he said bidding for a contractor for permanent seating should save about $30,000, and the city handling landscaping in-house should save about $120,000.
Stafford said Columbus Light & Water agreed to perform water distribution and sewage collection on-site at no cost other than material, which should save another $100,000.
Further cost-saving measures include the city using chairs it already has for temporary seating when needed, using regular concrete instead of stained and scored concrete, and removing a planned HVAC unit and accompanying insulation from one of the buildings.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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