Council approves bid letting of first BID board project

At Monday night’s Hill City Common Council meeting the city got one step closer to revamping its look.

The council unanimously approved Business Improvement District (BID) Board project number one, which paves the alleyway near Hill City Senior Center and Boys and Girls Club.

Brett McMacken, city administrator for Hill City, walked the council through the project at the meeting.

“This is one component of the BID board project,” McMacken said. The other portion of the project deals with a renovation of the senior center and adding public restrooms to the building. “The (BID  board) has been working on this project for several months.”

The BID board approved the plans at a meeting in the fall; however, due to work with the electrical engineer to ensure electrical pedestals could be installed properly, final plans were not ready for the council’s approval until Monday night’s meeting.

This portion of the project will focus on paving the alleyway, install handicapped spots near the senior center, installing parking spots in the alleyway and remove the racquetball court near the Boys and Girls Club and to create an additional play space at the Boys and Girls Club.

Both the Boys and Girls Club building and the senior center building are city-owned properties that the organizations lease from the city.

The bids will be done in separate phases, McMacken said. The main portion of the bid would be the paving of the alleyway, with the other portions done as extras.

This is being done, McMacken said, so the city can pick which bids to accept for each portion of the project and so it won’t be tied to high bids.

The paving of the alleyway is expected to cost roughly $80,000. Installing handicapped parking is expected to cost roughly $15,000. Creating roughly 42 parking spots is expected to cost $45,000. Installing the play space at the Boys and Girls Club is estimated to cost around $60,000.

The entire project is estimated to cost around $200,000; however, McMacken said these prices would not be finalized until they go out to bid.

The roughly 42 parking spots would be where the racquetball court stands and that space would be used for events for Hill City.

The bathrooms there would be removed and the existing area would be surfaced with asphalt.

“It has a good, solid base for parking,” McMacken said.

The electrical plans that McMacken was waiting on focused on the electrical work at the parking area. “The gist is putting in power pedestals for events. …We will also put in a block wall to allow for drainage from the Boys and Girls Club.”

The flow would go down the alleyway to Elm Street.

For the play space area, McMacken said Astroturf would be put down to create a playing surface for the kids at the Boys and Girls Club. This space, too, would double as a public space, meaning it would be available for public use and not just use from the Boys and Girls Club.

Two notices for bidding will go into the paper in February and a meeting will be scheduled for February so bidders for the project can ask McMacken and city engineer Kale McNaboe questions regarding the project.

Bid opening is planned for later in February with plans for the BID board to look over the bids in early March before going to council for final approval in mid-March.

The project, McMacken explained, should be complete by mid-June.

“It’s going to be a quick turnaround,” McMacken said. “Most of the work is asphalting, so all-in-all it should go pretty quickly. We don’t want to disturb the whole summer.”

The city will work on obtaining easements with the properties that border the alleyway and will work on parking issues for employees who park in the alleyway.

Alderman Jim Peterson wanted to know if a walkway from the handicapped spots would be installed during this phase of the project, to which McMacken said that portion of the project would be handled during the senior center renovation.

After some discussion about drainage flow the council then approved the project.

During his city administrator’s report, McMacken said himself, McNaboe and Buzz Grover, project manager for the senior center portion of the project, met with the architect and the plan is to have the plans ready for review by the end of the month.