Grant saved? City given more time to find contractor

Posted 9/24/24

The City of Powell may be able to keep a $420,000 state grant after all.

Early last week, City Administrator Zack Thorington had told the city council they’d likely have to return hundreds …

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Grant saved? City given more time to find contractor

Posted

The City of Powell may be able to keep a $420,000 state grant after all.

Early last week, City Administrator Zack Thorington had told the city council they’d likely have to return hundreds of thousands of dollars that the state awarded to help upgrade HVAC systems at city hall, the Powell Police Department and The Commons. The issue was that no contractors bid on the project this month and Thorington said there likely wasn’t enough time to try again ahead of an Oct. 1 deadline imposed by the State Loan and Investment Board (SLIB).

However, the city received good news from SLIB staff on Thursday: The state is giving the city more time to find a bidder, extending the deadline to “encumber” the grant funds to Oct. 31.

“... Staff is working something up as we speak and will be rebidding soon,” Thorington said Thursday morning.

In the first go-round, the city split up the project by building to give contractors more flexibility. In the rebidding, the job will be split up even further, he said, with the option to separate out the HVAC and roof work.

“We had some interest in just the HVAC units and ducting, but no one was interested in the whole project which included new roofs,” Thorington said Monday.

The administrator said three general contractors — Sletten Construction, Groathouse Construction and Jim’s Building Service — had attended a walkthrough meeting in August. When asked why they ultimately chose not to bid, “all three said the same,” Thorington said, “they were too busy, and personnel and time was too thin.”

As of Monday, the city hadn’t set a firm timeline for the second round of bids, but Thorington wants to have them in hand by Oct. 18, so they can be considered at the Oct. 21 council meeting.

The city has already used over $48,000 of the grant on engineering, and will get to keep that money regardless of how the bidding goes, Thorington has said.

The state dollars are being drawn from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

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