Published: January 06, 2009 09:05 am      

City hears good news on park bids

Woodward City Commissioners received some good news during their regular meeting Monday evening as they learned that bids for upcoming projects at Crystal Beach Park came in under budget.

Commissioners approved awarding a pedestrian lighting contract to Stuart C. Irby for $225,007, a water line project to H & H Frame for $388,250, and the parking and landscape projects to Broce Construction Company for $3,079,852.18.

“All are under projected amounts,” City Manager Alan Riffel said.

In fact, the water line project bid came in at almost $100,000 cheaper than what Studio Architecture had thought it would, according to Architect Jim Hasenbeck, who was on hand to explain each of the projects in more detail.

For example, he assured the commissioners that the water line project was bid as a whole project rather than piecemeal and even the bid encompassed adding a new line as well as tying into existing lines.

Hasenbeck also informed the commissioners that the lighting project encompassed all areas of the park, even lighting for the various venues, because Studio Architecture wanted all of the fixtures throughout the park to be the same. However, with respect to the lights for the major venues, the bid only includes the price of the fixtures, he said, noting that the installation was included in the separate venue bids.

“The contractors already have the money to install, they just need the fixtures,” he said.

In discussing the parking and landscaping project, Hasenbeck noted that various alternates according to venue were bid separately to help the city establish rental rates for the various venues based on the total cost for that particular venue.

Furthermore, the architect said the project will begin with the parking lot west of the arena grandstands and then move on to the other venues as they are scheduled to open, i.e. the baseball fields, Fuller Park, and the Aquatics Center respectively.

However, he noted that the arena parking lot isn’t scheduled to be completed until early April, which Mayor Bill Fanning said might cause some issues with the District Livestock Show in early March.

“We usually fill up about half that lot,” Fanning said. “So we’re going to need alternate parking for them.”

Riffel assured him that the matter will be addressed and some sort of solution worked out.

In other business, the commissioners approved a franchise agreement with Suddenlink Communications. According to Riffel, the agreement has been in the works for a while, but was slowed down by some ownership changes and changes in federal regulations.

In addition, there were issues such as extending service to recently developed areas where there have been new apartments and other homes built that the city wanted addressed, the city manager said.

“That’s been taken care of, so we feel its okay to approve the agreement,” he said to the commissioners.

City attorney Aaron Sims also assured the commissioners that even though it has taken so long to develop the new agreement, the cable company has kept up with all the standards under the old agreement.

With the franchise agreement approved, the city commissioners then approved increasing the rent the city is charging Suddenlink for the city’s land where the company’s cable antenna is located.