Washington will build its own Wellness Park concessions stand

WASHINGTON — City council members approved a plan last week to roughly halve the cost of a concessions stand in the Washington Wellness Park, by having the city’s parks department construct it instead of a contractor.

The move came after a public bid drew attention from a single contractor in April: a North Liberty-based company offering to do the job for $299,000. That was well above the city’s budget for the project, according to officials who said they could get all the needed materials covered for $150,000 with room for contingency.

“It’ll be a challenge, you know, it’s a little bit out of our wheelhouse,” said Parks Superintendent Nick Pacha. “But we’ve got some pretty talented folks on staff. We’ll pull everyone together and get it done, it might take a little longer than if we hired it out.”

Construction is expected to start in a matter of weeks, after municipal public works and maintenance departments connect a water and sewer line to the building, and area businesses deliver the materials. Pacha said the city hoped to have the structure finished by this winter.

The project’s completion is required by a $100,000 grant from the federal Land and Water Conservation fund, which the city won to help finance a handful of improvements in the park. Pacha said the grant was contingent upon Washington’s construction of the stand as well as a nearby restroom, and soccer field lighting improvements.

It also represents a long-awaited amenity for the city’s newest park. In a memo to council members, Pacha wrote that the stand, “will be a great addition to the soccer fields and the Wellness Park overall.”

As far as unfavorable public bids go, the project was not an outlier in a market marked by rising construction costs that often outpace tax revenues.

In May, the city rejected bids to construct a traffic signal that were $230,000 above an engineer’s price estimate. At the county level, construction costs for long-discussed office renovations at Orchard Hill have vexed decision-makers as well. North of Washington, the city of Riverside was forced to delay accessibility improvements at a popular tourist stop last summer when bids clustered on the high end of initial estimations, leading the local government to apply for a Riverboat Foundation grant, which it ultimately failed to win.

Washington City Council Member Patrick Morgan said he hoped the Wellness Park concessions stand could offer a model for other in-house construction efforts, if they were needed.

“I get it’s going to be a little more responsibility on some others, and maybe some pain points,” he said. “But it’ll be a good learning lesson for us, if we have other items like this and opportunities, can we continue to do this?”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com