Grant to help fund Fifth Street improvements; property purchase facilitates water resuse project
The once-delayed Sooner Pool Expansion Project will move forward after the City Council voted Monday to approve a contract for construction for the expansion, which includes slides, shelters and other general improvements to the existing Sooner Pool facilities located in Sooner Park, 420 S.E. Madison Blvd.
A discretionary project included on the voter approved 2013 Half-cent Sales Tax extension ballot, the council awarded a contract to Kimley-Horn for the design and master planning last October. But the expansion hit a major snag last summer when the lone bid for construction came in nearly half a million dollars over budget.
The bid was rejected by the council during a July 6 meeting, and City staff went to work to rebid the project — this time with the intention of attracting more bidders and possibly making modifications to the project to bring down costs.
“This project was originally bid earlier this year but the lone bid received was $462,831 over the available budget,” said Director of Engineering Micah Siemers. “The council elected to reject the bid with the expectation that staff would make some modifications to the project scope and/or bid documents to hopefully gain more interest in the project and thus receive more competitive bids as part of a rebid of the project.
But after digging into the project scope with the design consultant, it was determined there was nothing that could be cut from the project scope, Siemers said.
“The project is already straight forward, with three slides, associated mechanical equipment, three group shelters and associated concrete deck space required for the complex,” he said. “There really isn’t anything to cut and still have a viable project.”
The one thing that could be done, he said, was to split the components into multiple add bid alternates to provide some flexibility if bids still came in high even after gaining more interest from bidders.
“The rebid was structured to include a base bid for the main components of the new pool amenities, such as slides, concrete deck, mechanical enclosure, pumps, etc.,” Siemers said. “However, the rebid differed from the original bid by only including two of the three slides in the base bid while including an add alternate for the third slide.”
Siemers said the parking lot add alternate was also split into two alternates, one for the main parking area and one for an additional, smaller portion of the parking lot.
“The original bid just had one parking lot alternate for the entire lot,” he said. “Similar to the original bid, the rebid also included add alternates for stone boulders under the slides in lieu of sod, for maintenance purposes.”
Funding for the project, $2,450,000, was approved as part of the 2021-22 Fiscal Year CIP budget for added amenities, along with $300,000 to resurface the existing swimming pool, for a total budget of $2,750,000. The base bid awarded Monday was to Magnum Construction in the amount of $2,882,000. An alternate bid for $199,000 was also awarded to the company to construct a new parking lot, bringing the total amount to $3,081,000. General Obligation Bond funds for the parking lot repairs will be added once they are available later this year. The balance, $132,000, will be funded through unspent Half-cent CIP Sales Tax funds.
Siemers said construction on the project should start later this calendar year or early 2022.
In other business, the council took the following actions:
City Council receives grant for Fifth Street improvements
The council voted unanimously to officially receive $228,333 in grant funding for street and sidewalk improvements on Fifth Street between Sunset Boulevard to Santa Fe Avenue.
On June 14, 2021, the City Council authorized City staff to submit an application for grant funding to the State of Oklahoma Department of Commerce for the FY 2021 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Small Cities Set-Aside Program. Bartlesville has received CDBG grant funding, which must be used for improvements in low to moderate income neighborhoods, for several years.
The required matching funds for Fifth Street project will come from Half-cent Capital Improvements Sales Tax funds in the amount of $228,333, approved as part of the Fiscal 2021-22 Fiscal Year CIP Budget.
The project will likely get under construction next summer.
Water reuse property acquisition approved
An agreement between the City and Ken-Ada Ranches that will facilitate the ongoing water reuse project was approved by the council on Monday.
In February 2019, the council approved a professional service contract with Tetra Tech for design services for a pump station and pipeline for water reuse, which will take treated water from the wastewater treatment plant and pump it approximately 3.5 miles north to discharge into the Caney River, upstream of the City’s raw water intake in Johnstone Park. The water can then be recaptured and retreated for consumption.
“The proposed pipeline alignment requires the acquisition of an easement from Ken-Ada Ranches, for easement that starts just north of County Road West 1775 to the Caney River, which is approximately 2.8 miles of the 3.5 mile pipeline,” Water Utilities Director Terry Lauritsen said in a recent report to the council. “City staff and the property owner have reached an agreement for the easement. The City will pay Ken-Ada Ranches $200,000 and enter into a separate water purchase agreement.”
Lauritsen said $8,970,000 has been budgeted for the construction of the pump station and pipeline portion of the project. The funding is through a Bureau of Reclamation Grant ($750,000) and financing through the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (up to $8,220,000 available). The estimated construction cost for the project with contingencies is $7.5 million, $128,800 of which has been spent on closing costs and attorney fees for the OWRB financing, leaving up to $1,342,000 for easement acquisition and professional services. Lauritsen said that while some funding has been spent on easement acquisitions and professional services, there are sufficient funds in the budget to cover the Ken-Ada property acquisition.
A condition of the agreement requires a separate contract with Ken-Ada Ranches to be treated as an Industrial customer with a flat volumetric rate and ties the water purchase contract to the existence of the pipeline easement.
Construction is anticipated to begin in early 2022 and will take approximately 15 months to complete.