Firm hired to seek bids -- this time, by trade -- for Lake Ellyn projects
A construction and design firm that made a $3.6 million bid - the only one offered - to improve Lake Ellyn will instead be hired as a construction manager to oversee the project.
Though they were clearly disappointed by the low interest, Glen Ellyn Park District leaders say hiring Wight & Company as a construction manager, not as a general contractor, could help the district get better prices. The Darien firm will now seek bids by trade, rather than a lump sum. Doing so opens up the bids to a wider group of contractors, Wight representatives said.
The district's board of commissioners has yet to finalize the scope of the facelift, but the centerpiece would be restoring the Lake Ellyn Boathouse "as close to" its original 1937 design, Executive Director Dave Harris said. Other improvements could include replacing the playground, adding landscaping, building a stand-alone bathroom and putting up a wall around three sides of the boathouse that would match its architectural features and protect it from flooding.
In a 5-1 vote Wednesday, the board agreed to pay up to $110,000 for Wight to manage the project, providing among other things, an "on-site superintendent." If the district doesn't move forward, Wight gets only a $12,000 pre-construction fee.
Harris still hopes to stay on schedule despite the longer bid process. The goal is to complete the makeover before the 2016 Fourth of July celebration, with fireworks traditionally launched over Lake Ellyn and a cardboard boat regatta the weekend before.
Harris also expects to stay on budget, with about $2.9 million built up in fund balances through user fees and by issuing bonds.
Several commissioners on Wednesday offered theories for the low interest from general contractors. Twenty-eight people - some of them subcontractors, Commissioner Kathy Cornell said - attended a mandatory pre-bid meeting in late May, but only Wight formally submitted a bid.
"This was initially going to be two projects, the park and then the boathouse," Commissioner Gary Mayo said. "And we made, I think, a tactical error when we combined those two."
If the bids still come back higher than expected, some improvements could be scrapped or deferred. The board should review the offers at their early August meeting, and, if approved, shovels could conceivably hit the ground that month, Harris said.
Some lower priority items are replacing trails with permeable pavers, Commissioner Jay Kinzler said.
He voted against hiring Wight as the construction manager, saying the district should "slow down the process." He suggested talking to consultants who created a Lake Ellyn master plan adopted by the board in January 2013, interviewing the contractors who got the paperwork at the May meeting but didn't submit offers and then seeking bids for individual projects.
"Maybe we could do a better job publicizing it," Kinzler said. "I think that it was such a big project with so many moving parts."