Bids come in for new firehouse

Superior Fire Chief John Woodland received 12 bids from various general contractors last Monday for work on the new firehouse.

The new firehouse in Superior will go on the open land behind the old school house.

Unfortunately, Woodland and the town council plan to reject each bid. Woodland said with some minor changes to the specifications, the base line bid for the project could be lower.

“We are working on putting together a list of what changes we think we can make and what they will be worth, dollar wise, to make sure it will work for us,” Woodland said. “We are pretty comfortable that where we are going is we will reject all bids and then go back and rebid it.”

The 12 potential contractors that placed bids are Haskins Excavating, Dick Anderson Construction, Garden City Builders, Marovich Construction, Eogell Construction Development, Western Interstate, Sirius Construction, Jackson Construction, Pacific West Construction Patterson Construction, Eichner Builders and Swanic Enterprises.

Dick Anderson Construction had the highest bid at $1,017,434 and Patterson Construction had the lowest bid at $733,195.

Each contractor’s bid had 11 alternate amounts for different plans. The alternate plans included paving, radiant heat, kitchen construction, lockers, upgraded bay door, colored concrete, extra windows, spray insulation, sprinklers, fire detection and a hydrant.

Woodland believes the final bid can be lower by adjusting the alternate plans.

“We are looking at ways to accomplish the same thing,” Woodland said. “In terms of what we get overall, with making it less expensive to build, then getting them to bid less.”

Besides a suitable contractor’s bid, the new firehouse project already has the money and land in place.

Woodland applied for a community block grant in 2009 and the next year, the grant came through for $346,500. Then on May 10, voters in Superior approved a levy vote for the new firehouse worth $498,000. The town of Superior also kicked in $112,000 from the capital improvement budget.

Part of the funding went to buying the new land for the firehouse. The purchase of the land closed in August. The old building the firehouse is currently in, is owned by the county. The county will decide what to do with it when the fire department leaves.

Montana Creative Design, out of Whitefish, is the architect for the firehouse project.

Woodland predicts the groundbreaking for the project as early as Jan. 1 next year.