Discussion:
On January 9, 2019, City Council authorized the budget advancement of a portion of the Capital Improvement Plan project Storm-22-001. As part of Scott County's Government Center Project, there was an opportunity to capitalize on their parking lot work and partnership to construct a city storm water quality project that would treat the existing storm water runoff from a mostly residential area that exists south of the Government Center which would otherwise continue to flow directly into the Minnesota River untreated.
The intent of the project was to package the city's water quality facility improvement with the county's project. The city's project was included as an Alternate 2 Bid of the Scott County Government Center project. Bids were received and opened on March 7, 2019.
Two bids were received for the site work portion of the county's project (Base Bid) including the city's portion of the project (Alternate 2 Bid), summarized below. The low bid contractor is identified by the low amount of the sum of Base Bid and accepted Alternates for each Work Scope. It should also be noted that the Alternate 2 Bid work is not required to be awarded, dependent on the city's approval.
Unfortunately, the low bidder is associated with the highest Alternate 2 bid. If the city were to approve the city's portion of the project, the city can only consider the Alternate 2 Bid that aligns with the low total bid, which amounts to $218,096 (which is actually a substantially higher bid for the city's work when compared to lower bid amount of $130,000).
County's Site Work Project (Base Bid) Plus City's Project (Alternate 2 Bid)
| Bidder |
Base Bid |
Alternate 2 Bid |
Sum of Bid |
| Rachel Contracting, Inc. |
$2,613,482 |
$218,096 |
$2,831,578 |
| S.M. Hentges & Sons, Inc. |
$2,739,303 |
$130,000 |
$2,869,303 |
Based on the city's only option under the county's project of awarding the higher of the Alternate 2 Bids ($218,096 vs. $130,000), staff is recommending to reject the bid and not approve proceeding with the city portion of the project.
With that said, the city has a potential future opportunity to provide a similar water quality treatment facility in an alternate location in a second larger parking lot to the west of the Government Center. The timing of the county's west parking lot project follows the main Government Center project so there is additional time to evaluate the feasibility of this project.