City Commissioners will consider awarding a $3,544,750 contract to Wadsworth Builders for the Great Falls Police Department evidence building expansion during their Feb. 6 meeting.
City staff is recommending approval of the project that will be funded with American Rescue Plan Act dollars, which are federal COVID relief funds.
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The project includes the construction of a roughly 8,000-square-foot addition onto the south side of the existing GFPD building.
Commissioners identified the project was identified as a priority project for ARPA funds in April 2022.
The GFPD has been facing overcrowding in the evidence storage area for years, a challenge exacerbated with increasing crime rates and newer retention requirements, according to staff.
The city hired BSpark Architecture for the preliminary designs and the construction contract went out for bid in December.
Wadsworth and James Talcott Construction submitted bids.
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The bid was broken into a base bid plus contingency, with two additional alternatives.
While reviewing bids, staff noticed different interpretations by the bidders.
The bid form indicated that a 2.5 percent contingency of the base bid was to be included in the base bid, according to staff.
Wadsworth added the contingency line item to the base bid while Talcott added it to the total base bid, according to staff, but it didn’t change the overall lowest bid.
Staff confirmed the numbers with bidders and continued their review.
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Since both bids were within the project budget, the city is able to complete both of the alternates of installing a dumbwaiter, and fencing and gates, according to staff.
Commissioners could deny the award, rebid or cancel the project, but, “this action would result in the project to suffer additional timeline delays. This project has some potentially long lead components and is a relatively major undertaking that, so it is imperative to get the contract approved and equipment ordered to enable construction to begin as soon as possible,” according to staff.
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Staff is recommending approval as the project has to be obligated by December 2024 and completed by December 2026 to meet ARPA guidelines.
