Cascade County Commissioners approved a $2,218,000 contract with A.T. Klemens Inc for the Montana Expo Park roof replacement.

The project will replace about 96,000-square-feet of roof on the Pacific Steel and Recycling Four Seasons Arena and Exhibition Hall.

The county solicited bids in August and September and received five bids ranging from $1.97 million to $2.7 million.

One bid was incomplete and was not considered.

County approves funds for capital projects

The county is using TD&H Engineering to assist with the project and they reviewed and recommended the A.T. Klemens bid, which was the lowest bid meeting the requirements, according to county public works.

In December, commissioners held a special meeting to allocate funds for several capital projects.

The Expo Park roof project was among them and commissioner voted to use $1.957 million of ARPA funds and $691,963.24 in one-time federal Local and Tribal Consistency funds, which were also part of COVID relief legislation, toward the estimated $3 million project at Montana Expo Park.

County increased facility rental rates for Montana Expo Park

During the December meeting, Susan Shannon said that 60 percent of their calendar is full in those facilities for the year. Shannon is the Expo Park manager.

She told commissioners that 80 percent of Expo Park’s interim revenue comes from those facilities, and during the state fair, 30 percent of the total revenue comes from events in those venues.

Les Payne, county public works director, said that the roof project had been on their radar for awhile and they’d been making repairs regularly.

Payne said that the project was discussed several years ago and he was told it would be funded, so his department bid the project with an estimated $2 million budget.

County seeking bids for Expo Park roof replacement [2022]

The first round only garnered two bids, which were over budget.

The county put the project off for awhile and rebid it last year, receiving six bids, but the costs had increased.

Payne said that’s why he was asking to budget $3 million for the project.

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He said that then there’s issues with water from the roof getting onto the basketball floor in that venue, the whole state hears about it and the county could risk losing major tournament if the issues isn’t addressed.