Authority rejects plumbing bidder
Centre Daily Times
The Centre Regional Recreation Authority has rejected the apparent low bid for the Park Forest Swimming Pool plumbing contract because the company's bond didn't meet specifications, regional parks director Ron Woodhead said Wednesday.
The next lowest plumbing bid added nearly $45,000 to costs, so a few pool provisions have been downgraded by the authority while others will be completed at less expense apart from the contracts, Woodhead said.
When bids were opened last Thursday, Montgomery Bros. Plumbing and Heating, of Altoona, was the apparent low bidder at $149,000, substantially less than all three competitors: Goodco Mechanical, of State College ($193,000), Robert Johnson Plumbing and Heating, of Lewistown ($194,785), and McClure Co., of State College ($198,750).
But the company’s bond didn’t meet bid specifications, Woodhead said, and so the recreation authority at a Tuesday meeting decided to award the contract to the next lowest bidder, Goodco.
The other three apparent low bidders — Mid-State Construction, of Altoona, for general contractor, Mountainside Electric, of Rebersburg, for electrical work and Stoneridge Aquatic Construction, of Feasterville, for the pool construction itself — did not change.
But the height of a fence surrounding the pool area was reduced from eight feet to six feet to reduce costs and the roofing material for the bathhouse and pavilion was downgraded from metal to asphalt shingles. The general contract fell from $1,089,000 to $1,012,100.
The authority also decided to install a less complex lighting control system than the electrical bid specifications called for and voted to obtain a sound system on its own. The electrical contract went down from $175,136 to $167,767.
Woodhead said the $3.2 million budget for the pool could not afford an ultraviolet filter for the baby pool— something that he said will be added in future years. He said the filter kills viruses that chlorine doesn’t.
Locker room benches that would have cost $22,000 in the bid contract will be done by the authority itself for a lot less, Woodhead said.
“We’re real lean there in order to make this,” Woodhead said. “We can still have the pool that the community wants.”
Before the bids can be awarded, they must be approved by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which granted money to help cover costs, and by a Council of Government’s regional parks committee, which will take up the matter when it meets at 12:15 p.m. today at the COG building, 2643 Gateway Drive, Ferguson Township.