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Fairfield council awards fire station contract to Christner Contracting
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield City Council approved a bid of about $7.3 million to build a new fire station at the corner of North Fourth and West Briggs.
The council voted unanimously to award the contract to Christner Contracting Inc. of Ottumwa during its meeting Monday, Nov. 25. The vote was 5-0 with council members Paul Gandy, Judy Ham, Elizabeth Estey, Terri Kness and Matthew Rowe voting in favor. Two council members, Doug Flournoy and Tom Twohill, were absent.
Fairfield City Engineer and Public Works Director Melanie Carlson thanked all the businesses that submitted a bid, of which there were 10. Carlson said she was pleased with the number of bids and their amounts. She said Christner Contracting submitted the lowest bid, and the next lowest was about $20,000 higher, from Bi-State Contracting of West Burlington.
“We were really happy with the range, and I would say they were well-grouped,” Carlson told the council. “We don’t think the low bid left anything out, or that the contractors were not bidding the same project.”
Gandy noted how amusing it was that all bids were submitted within two minutes of each other. Carlson said there was reflective of the competitive nature of the bids, waiting until the last moment to get the best unit price or best price on a piece of equipment. She said the city’s engineering firm Klingner & Associates checked the references for Christner Contracting, and that they were good, so Carlson recommended the council award the contract to Christner.
Construction on the new fire station should begin next spring. The plan is for the Fairfield Fire Department to move into its new home in the spring or summer of 2026.
Two years ago, Fairfield voters approved a bond to borrow $5 million on what was then expected to be a $6 million fire station. Carlson said that, due to inflation causing the cost of construction materials to balloon, the city had to redesign the new fire station by decreasing the number of garage doors and consolidating the training tower and hose-drying tower into a single structure.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
