Landrum City Council members will meet in a special called meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 31 to discuss the rebidding of the depot renovation project.
Council originally awarded the renovation contract to Daniel Owens Contracting on July 10, but Landrum City Administrator Steve Wolochowicz said an error was made in the submitted bid.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Owens did not include several portions of the project that were supposed to be itemized within his total cost,” Wolochowicz said.
Wolochowicz said this included features such as a pergola that is estimated to cost more than $80,000.
Owens originally provided what was believed to be the lowest bid at $415,667. Meanwhile, two other contractors, Larry Sossamon Construction of Gaffney and Karaman Properties of Landrum, supplied bids at $443,410 and $472,734, respectively. Adding the price for the pergola back into Owens’ project bid would have made his bid the highest of three submitted earlier this month.
Wolochowicz said this provides an opportunity for the city.
“I’m really looking at this as a positive thing. I feel bad for Mr. Owens but from the city’s perspective we have a good feel for how the design affects the price and I think we can get more into the budget that we were hoping for,” he said.
Wolochowicz said council would have the option of moving forward in three ways: re-advertise the entire project, ask all three contractors originally involved to rebid with requested changes or to eliminate Owens from the bidding and allow only Sossamon and Karaman to submit new bids.
Wolochowicz said the council is going to consider a number of ways to reduce the overall cost of the project based on recommendations from architect John Walters.
Walters said at the July 10 meeting that he was surprised by the overall bids that came in for the project. City officials said they had hoped to see the costs come in around the upper $300,000 range. Earlier in the year, council approved a bond issue in the amount of $300,000 for the project, to be paid over the course of seven years with hospitality tax funds.
Wolochowicz said the city has additional monies in the hospitality tax fund to cover the remainder of the project but hopes that number will be limited.