Bids from contractors for the Crookston School District bus garage project were due by 2:00 p.m. on Thursday. Three bids were received containing a base bid with four alternates, including the addition of asphalt outside the building, in-floor radiant heat in the shop, exhaust hose reels, and tempered (heated) air units for the garage. All three bids – Bradbury Stamm Construction in St. Cloud; MAK Construction in Grand Forks, North Dakota; and Sand Steel Building Company in Emerado, North Dakota; came in under the $2,835,000 voters approved in bonding during the November referendum.
ICON put together the bid package, and Todd Blixt, the principal architect from ICON, said he was happy to see all three bids were not only competitive but came in under budget. “I’m always happy to get more than two bidders and we got three,” said Blixt. “I would’ve liked to see more, but that’s okay. They were very competitive. They were right in the same range, which means I think our team did a good job of keeping the drawings and specs tight to get the intent across to everybody when they’re bidding. At the end of the day, all the costs and pricings are right in high with where we were. And you add them all up, and we’re under budget. That’s a great thing for everybody.”
| Bradbury Stamm (St. Cloud) | MAK Construction (Grand Forks) | Sand Steel Building Co. (Emerado) | |
| Base Bid | $2,547,000 | $2,439,000 | $2,460,000 |
| Asphalt | $120,000 | $195,000 | $148,000 |
| In-floor radiant heat | $110,000 | $94,000 | $80,000 |
| Exhaust hose reels | $20,000 | $18,700 | $20,000 |
| Tempered Air Unit | $34,000 | $41,600 | $38,000 |
| Total bid with alternates | $2,831,000 | $2,788,300 | $2,746,000 |
| Excavation per cubic yard | $41.30 | $52.00 | $44.00 |
| Work completed | 220 calendar days | 210 calendar days | 300 calendar days |
Crookston Superintendent Jeremy Olson said the school board would review the three bids on Monday, February 24, at 5:00 p.m. during the meeting to determine which alternates they want to include, which will ultimately determine who the lowest responsible bidder on the project is. “What we’re looking at right now is to take this to the board next Monday as an addendum to the agenda,” said Olson. “If there was anything, we were concerned of such as a major screw up in the past or something like that we knew of where we couldn’t classify them as responsible bidders. We believe that all three bidders we have are responsible bidders, so it comes down to which alternates are we going to select along with the base price. Whichever is cheaper will be the one that is selected.”
Blixt said the tempered air system alternate would result in long-term savings and shorter temperature recovery time after doors are opened. “On this project, code requires a certain amount of air to be exchanged in the building when you’re running vehicles,” said Blixt. “You can do it one of two ways, you can bring in cold air from outside, or you can bring in tempered air, which is heated air. Of course, it costs a little bit more money to do that because you need a heater, a few other things, and a furnace to do that. It’s recommended that you do it because it will save money in the long run. It helps with the recovery time of having the doors open and then shut. So, you always want to try to do it if you can, and we had an alternate to see what it would cost and if it was worth it. If we were a little over budget, maybe that was something we could cut back on, but as we’re sitting right now, it’s pretty good, and maybe we can have that.”
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