Story - The Meade County Messenger


Vol. 114, No. 52	December 26, 2007

Fire committee starts bid review process for new station

By LARRY SEE JR.
Messenger Staff

Fire Chief Larry Naser and board members Martin Bosemer and John Abadie have been busy.

The three have been working independently to sift through eight bids received for a new fire station, to be erected off Armory Place Road.

And their work is starting to pay off, as the trio have narrowed the list to three bidders, Bosemer said at the district’s board meeting Dec. 17.

“Due to the diversity of the proposals we have a lot of questions that we have to go back and research,” Bosemer said.

“We have a lot of things that we have to go through and discuss,” Bosemer said, adding some bidders gave the district more square feet than they requested, but at a very low price.

Bid prices ranged from $1.2 to $1.6 million, with Bosemer adding none of the eight bidders went over the higher threshold.

“There were a lot of differences for what you could offer for that price,” he said. “The three that we are actually looking at are three very qualified organizations that have built facilities before. We have looked at them, went to see them and even touched them.”

Naser was singled out by Bosemer for doing a lot of research on the firms.

The next step, according to Bosemer, is to continue to investigate the proposals.

But, on the bright spot, all three stations can be placed on the firm’s proposed site and there was a significant difference between these three and the others.

“These three were just chosen for logical reasons,” he said.

Bosemer said firefighters will be tasked with determining the cost of chairs and tables to outfit the facility, adding the prices will be incorporated into final building costs.

Other aspects the trio are considering is the station’s functionality.

“We want to know if we move the first fire truck in there if we can still use the station five years from now,” Bosemer said. “We also need to know if we can add on and what the costs for operations and maintenance would be.”

Very few firms relayed that information, Bosemer said, adding it was something the department needed to know. He said the department needed to know what kind of guarantees the contractors would offer, such as for the paint.

“There are a lot of options that we have to look at,” Bosemer said.

Some of the firms didn’t provide a construction timeline, Bosemer said, while others were very specific.

He said the earliest date the full board could learn more about the process would be the next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 21.

“In the earlier part of January we can establish the LLC and we can discuss these alternatives under that board,” Bosemer said. A LLC is a limited liability corporation the district is creating to handle the building’s financial aspects. Fire district board members would double as members of this board.

“The committee will report to this board and it will be recommended for the LLC board to act upon,” Bosemer said. “I would expect the committee to come back to this board with an analysis. We may have to have two or three meetings to go over the mechanics.”

“This is going to look like a nice fire station,” Naser said. “This is not going to look like a Taj Mahal fire station.”

Naser said the station could be a brick or metal exterior, or a variation thereof, as several different proposals were offered.

In a related matter, members unanimously agreed to put $70,000 into a high-paying account at a local bank.

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