Boone County animal-control center bids far exceed $800K budget - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

• By Ben Stanley
  Rockford Register Star

  Posted Jun. 22, 2015 at 3:36 PM
  Updated Jun 22, 2015 at 11:57 PM

  BELVIDERE — Three bids Boone County received for building an animal-control center far exceed the architect's cost estimate last July.

  Voters approved a referendum in November to build the facility using $800,000 generated over three years by a small property tax increase.

  The referendum ended years of debate over how to pay for a new center. The state of the facility has been an issue for years. In 2010, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited it for several violations.

  The $800,000 estimate given by architect Mark Schmidt in July 2014 influenced the County Board's decision to seek that amount in the referendum. The county reached out to 10 contractors for the project; three submitted bids Friday:

  Sjostrom & Sons: $1,242,800.

  Rockford Structures Construction Co.: $1,099,000.

  Larson & Larson Builders: $1,080,800.

"Things have changed in the marketplace in the last year,"

Schmidt said. "We added square footage to the building and we're building in a different location. All of those things were variables I couldn't have estimated in 2014."

The original plans were for a 2,700-square-foot building on a lot off Highway 76 just north of Maple Crest Care Center. New plans call for a 3,500-square-foot building on a lot off Squaw Prairie Road just east of the original site.

The Roads and Capital Improvements Committee held a special meeting tonight  to review the county's options — scrap the current plans and take bids in 60 to 90 days for a cheaper design, find more money for the project, or make a commitment to the low bidder on the condition that costs are trimmed from the design to keep the building within budget while keeping its blueprint intact.

"We pushed for a tighter bid schedule than we probably should have," committee member Karl Johnson said during the meeting.

Without an additional funding source, and fearing that rejecting the bids to draft a new building design could set construction back another calendar year, the committee voted to make a conditional commitment to Larson & Larson, pending approval by Boone County State's Attorney Michelle Courier.

Schmidt listed 10 ways the county could shave costs from the design. Among them: decreasing superficial elements, such as the amount of stone siding on the building; and making interior changes, such as reducing the number of fenced stalls for animals. The new building keeps the same number of stalls as the old one.

"As I understand it, the capacity of the current building was never the problem, it was the quality of the building itself," Schmidt said.

Animal Services Operations Supervisor Roger Tresemer said he doesn't want the building's animal capacity to be reduced.

"Some of the niceties for the office areas could be brought aboard later," he said. "I thought ... the whole reason of building a new shelter was you'd have a safer, cleaner, easier-to-sanitize environment but still house at least the same number of animals."

Ben Stanley: 815-987-1369; bstanley@rrstar.com; @ben_j_stanley

By Ben Stanley
Rockford Register Star

Rockford Register Star

 

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