[October 07, 2008]

Demolition of first 72 flooded structures set

(Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids, IA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 7--CEDAR RAPIDS -- City Hall's move to reject demolition bids and seek new ones will save the city more than $600,000.

City officials on Monday said they will recommend that the City Council on Wednesday award a demolition contract for 72 flood-damaged structures to D.W. Zinser Co. of Walford for an estimated $1,639,037.

If approved, demolitions are expected to begin quickly at a hoped-for pace of about two homes a day, city purchasing manager Judy Lehman said Monday.

The estimated cost of the Zinser bid breaks down to an average of $22,764 for each structure, most of them homes. These are the ones with purple placards in the city's system of identifying the extent of damage to flooded properties.

In an earlier round of bidding, the apparent winning bidder, Bamaco Inc. of Bunnell, Fla., would have demolished the structures at a per-structure average of $31,584. That is $8,820 more per property, or $635,000 more when applied to 72 properties, than the Zinser cost in the latest round of bidding.

Zinser's bid in this round bested 14 other bidders, including Bamaco. This time, Bamaco's bid was estimated to cost a total of $2,109,456, or $29,298 per property.

Bamaco went to court in Linn County in late August to prevent the city from rejecting the earlier round of bids.

The court rejected Bamaco's arguments and approved the city's decision to seek a new round of bids.

City Manager Jim Prosser said the earlier bid documents had called for demolition of 28 structures, but as time passed, the city found it had 50 homes and other structures it wanted to demolish. Prosser said he believed the city could get a better per-unit price if it sought bids for 50 properties rather than applying the per-unit cost for 28 demolitions to 50 properties.

By the time the city got to rebidding the work -- after the court delay -- the number of structures to be razed had increased to 72.

It wasn't the smoothest bidding process, and one cost has been that homes too dangerous to enter are still standing nearly four months after June's record flood.

Bidding on the demolition began July 11. The city tossed out a first round of nine bids after concluding its bid documents were too confusing.

In the second round of eight bidders, city officials first said they would recommend awarding the contract to Southwest Innovations Construction, of Port Charlotte, Fla., early the week of Aug. 4. By Aug. 6, city officials had rejected Southwest Innovations' bid for technical reasons and were recommending Bamaco's bid of about $400,000 more than Southwest Innovations' bid. City officials, though, decided to seek new bids instead of seeking council approval of the Bamaco bid.

The demolition contract is much costlier than a typical home-demolition contract because the city must treat all the debris as if its contains asbestos. Workers cannot enter the homes and remove any asbestos because the homes are too dangerous to enter.

By way of cost comparison, the city this year contracted for the routine demolition of five homes and a few ancillary buildings at a total cost of $35,450, or about $7,000 a home.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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