Jump in price will delay Lake Jackson animal control facility

The Facts
By GAYLA MURPHY gayla.murphy@thefacts.com
March 28, 2023

LAKE JACKSON — The city will need to come up with millions of more dollars if it wants to proceed with the new animal control facility as currently drawn, City Council members were told.

“We had our second bid opening a couple of weeks ago and our low bid was almost $6.3 million,” City Manager Modesto Mundo said during council’s meeting last week. “Our budget right now, construction budget remaining after design is $3.4 million, so we’re approximately $3 million short.”

The city first sought construction bids last summer, and the cost has risen by $1.3 million since then, Mundo said.

The architect believes those bids can be lowered, he said.

“The recommendation now from staff is to pause and then go out for RFQ, which is a request for qualification for a construction manager which could cost in the range of $15,000 to $20,000,” Mundo said.

The construction manager’s role would be to assess costs and help find a dependable and quality building contractor at a lower price, he said.

“The architect believes very much that they can shave off a large chunk of that. I’m skeptical and maybe there’s a million dollars in savings there, so I’ll see if they can surprise me,” Mundo said. “But it’s probably our last chance to see if we can try to save some funds without tapping any of our potential savings from the end of the year.”

The city has $1.3 million to transfer to capital projects available and almost $4 million in federal COVID relief funding that hasn’t been allocated to any projects at this time, but Mundo wants to use as little of that money as necessary, he said.

“Why can’t we, just hold off for a while hoping that the cost would come down,” Councilman Chase Blanchard asked. “I mean, nobody’s gonna like this idea, but we could pay the bond back. We could pay it back early. … I think if we paid the bond back early, the citizens would understand that move.”

Mundo agreed that was an option, but said hiring the general manager would help them better assess all their options going forward.

It’s at least worth the exercise without a commitment to see if a contractor can get a better price through value engineering and if they can’t it will be a decision-making point to do the project or not. This could delay the project for about six months, Mundo said.

Council agreed to bring the bids back to its next meeting and to also place on the agenda the approval for hiring the general construction manager.