At Monday evening’s meeting of Bloomington’s Redevelopment Commission, a guaranteed maximum for the demolition of the city’s 4th Street garage was approved: $1,482,393.
The timeline for demolition was also laid out, which includes a start date of Sept. 3, the day after the Labor Day holiday. The week before, starting Aug. 29, downtown visitors will see lane closures on Walnut and Fourth streets, to prepare for the demolition.
The roughly $1.48 million guaranteed maximum for the demolition is the figure that the city staff negotiated with the construction manager for the project, which is F.A. Wilhelm Construction. The amount is based on a low bid from Denney Excavating out of Plainfield.
Wilhelm received bids from three companies, which were opened on July 9. Base bids at the opening were read as follows: Renascent, Inc. ($1,267,000); Denney Excavating ($810,000); and O’Rourke Wrecking Company ($1,037,000).
Those amounts were all adjusted upward after the scope of the demolition project was adjusted. Denney’s base bid, with the scope adjustment, was accepted at $1,025,400.
The replacement garage project has an estimated total cost of $18,540,000. It’s planned to be a six-story garage with 510 parking spaces and roughly 11,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.
Several design revisions for the replacement garage at 4th street were presented to the RDC on Monday. The revisions were made at the request of the plan commission at its July 8 meeting. The plan commission is expected to take up the project again on Aug. 12
The current design assumes a footprint extending from 4th Street south to 3rd Street. So it assumes that a current eminent domain effort will be resolved in the city’s favor.
The city is attempting to acquire the Juansells.com Realty Company building, on the south end of the block, through the eminent domain process. The landowner is objecting. The most recent news from that lawsuit was a change of judge, something that the landowner can ask for, without making an argument for it.
The course of the eminent domain process looks like it has already lasted long enough to affect the choice of demolition options contemplated by the RDC and the construction manager. Demolition companies were asked to submit bid alternates for demolition sequencing from south to north, all in one go. But that alternate was not figured into the guaranteed maximum approved by the RDC on Monday.
As read at the opening, here are the base bids and alternates from the three demolition companies:
| Bids (from July 9)/Company | Renascent, Inc. | Denney Excavating |
O’Rourke Wrecking Company |
| Base bid | $1,267,000 | $810,000 | $1,037,000 |
| Payment performance bond | $12,670 | $12,070 | 2% of cost |
| Demolition/backfill south office building | $18,000 | $27,400 | $20,000 |
| Backfill lower level with recycled concrete from existing 4th Street garage | -$23,000 | -$110,000 | no bid |
| Demolition sequence starting at south property | -$200,000 | -$10,000 | -$100,000 |