During Monday morning’s special called Brownwood City Council meeting, Fain Construction, current contractor for the Coliseum Annex project and Family Aquatic Center, was awarded the bid for the highly anticipated Camp Bowie Sports Complex which will feature 12 ball fields.
The bid amount was $4,083,800 and Fain was the low bidder. According to city information, the bid includes the base bid of $2,296,188 with added alternate items which include: Irrigation $263,731; three (3) concession/restroom buildings at $182,420 each, and field lighting all 12 fields $976,621. The base bid includes construction of all backstops and dugout fencing from the backstops to 1st and 3rd bases, site preparation/dirt work/drainage, concrete work between the ball fields, sidewalks, dugouts with canopies, shade canopies over bleachers, shade pavilions for each of the complexes, and electrical work to each concession/restroom building.
To save on some of the construction costs, city crews and possibly work crews from the Havens Unit will be responsible for outfield/foul line fencing on all twelve fields and the parking lot lighting. Using “value engineering”, the city estimates they will be able to reduce cost to an estimated shortfall of $300,000 for all park projects.
City Manager, Bobby Rountree spoke of the Aquatic facility commenting, “We want to provide the citizens a facility we told them we would provide for them…a project that the citizens will be proud of.”
Another item that was unanimously approved by the council was authorization of designated funds of $280,000 from the Texas Water Development Board bond sinking fund (after the bonds are refinanced) and $134,000 from the Brown County Water Improvement District bond payment reserves to the Parks Projects Fund.
The city is currently under a covenant with the TWDB which requires the city to have enough funds to pay half of the next year’s bond payment. The city is currently budgeted to have $285,950 on hand on 9/30/10. These bonds are being refinanced in the near future which will result in the TWDB reserve requirement will disappear once the bond is refinanced. Which means the city could transfer $280,000 of this to other uses.
The BCWID Bond Reserve was set up years ago when the city entered into an agreement with the BCWID to guarantee their bonds for construction of a new water plant and pay the city’s portion of the bond payments. The city had planned for increases of $9/month for a regular residential meter that would be spread out over three years with the initial costs buffered by the use of reserves. The city set aside designated funds for this purpose. Now in the third year of using these funds, the use of all of these funds are not required and the city will have about $134,000 remaining on 9/30/10. The last year of the $3 increases will not be needed because it appears that the BCWED will not be required to use all of their available money from the TWDB. With Early and Zephyr soon getting onto the system, it is also likely that the city’s costs will go down in the future. Due to these factors the surplus $134,000 will not be needed in designated funds.
The total of these two funds will give a total of $414,000 that can be applied toward the Parks Project if needed.
Click Below for rendering of the Camp Bowie Sports Complex
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