Changes would boost Mozingo center cost
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The price tag for the taxpayer-funded $4.5 million golf course clubhouse and conference center at Mozingo Lake Recreation Park will increase by just over $156,000 if the Maryville City Council on Monday approves a change order submitted by general contractor E.L. Crawford Construction.
According to a staff report prepared by City Manager Greg McDanel and Assistant City Manager Ryan Heiland, “value engineering” items that reduced the original Crawford bid by $1.1 million included “several items that staff sought to analyze further, however ultimately knew would be required for the project.”
The report stated that these items embrace, among other things, a concrete, as opposed to asphalt, parking lot; curbs for the golf course entry street, and a retaining wall.
“It was anticipated that if staff could not reasonably construct these in-house, they would be returned to the contract as the budget allowed,” McDanel and Heiland wrote.
In requesting that the council approve the change order, the city’s top administrators pointed out that significant savings are predicted from a number of design changes, such as exchanging an $85,000 poured concrete retaining wall for a modular block wall provided by a local supplier at a cost of just under $14,000.
Costs added by the change order include builders risk insurance, $14,000; a concrete upper parking lot, $38,000; deck and masonry columns, $33,000; architects drawings, $10,000; and concrete curbs, $21,000.
The additions raise the estimated project cost to $4.7 million.
In justifying the difference between that sum and the budgeted expenditure, McDanel and Heiland stated that “staff has anticipated these costs on the project and identified an additional $183,174 of funds available in the Mozingo Recreation Fund from other line items.”
Proposed transfers from other portions of the Mozingo budget include $50,000 earmarked for marketing; $50,000 in architect’s fees, unpaid after Wertzberger Architects of Marshalltown, Iowa, was fired during the center’s pre-construction phase; $30,000 in riprap funds budgeted for lakeshore stabilization; $36,500 budgeted for a new event coordinator’s position; $8,000 budgeted for a part-time event coordinator position; and $8,000 for a park lawnmower.
The report stated that $75,000 for riprap rock earmarked for shoreline stabilization remains in the city’s spending plan and is already being spent.
In recommending approval of the change order, McDanel and Heiland stated that “several of the larger change order items are exclusions from the value engineering process which have allowed staff to analyze other options,” and that “redesigning and utilizing new material for these items has resulted in a savings from the original bid.”
During Monday’s session, the council is also expected to discuss conference center regulations and user fees pertaining to an outdoor “events lawn” and the facility’s modular banquet area, which can be rented as a single unit or divided into four individual meeting rooms rented separately.
Available in a number of configurations, the banquet area is designed to accommodate as many as 500 guests.
In other Mozingo-related business, the council will consider approving new policies for the Group Camp compound, which consists of five cabins and a multi-purpose building equipped as a dining hall.
The proposed resolution would end the practice of allowing youth organizations to “bump” other parties who have reserved the camp and paid a deposit.
If adopted, the guidelines, to be implemented on a one-year trial basis, would change the compound’s name from “Youth Camp” to “Group Camp” and make camp reservations available online.
Municipal staff is proposing the changes in an effort to increase the camp’s occupancy rate, which last year stood at only 16 percent.
Additional agenda items include approval of a $29,000 expenditure for a sewer line replacement along North Mulberry between West Fifth and West Sixth streets, and hay harvesting agreements with private vendors for 146 acres of Mozingo pastureland.
