MARSHALL — Bids for a new picnic shelter and other improvements at Garvin Park came in higher — a lot higher — than anticipated, Lyon County staff said this week.

“Two bids came in for the Garvin Park project, and both of those were over the amount of what grant dollars allowed,” said Lyon County Environmental Administrator Roger Schroeder. Schroeder said the low bid came in more than $533,000 over an engineer’s estimate.

County Commissioner Todd Draper said he thought the cause of the discrepancy appeared to come from an engineer’s estimates for the project.

“There was a line item that was way, way under, and that’s why your prices were so much over what we thought they were,” Draper said.

At Tuesday’s county board meeting, Lyon County commissioners opted to reject the construction bids, and find ways to reduce costs for the project.

Lyon County had received a roughly $1.1 million Legacy grant to make improvements like replacing restrooms, building a bigger main picnic shelter, resurfacing parking lots, and building an ADA-accessible trail to the warming house at Garvin Park. The grant also requires a 10% local match from the county, which would come to about $123,000, Schroeder said. So far, the county has purchased new park buildings for the project at a cost of around $437,000, he said.

With the construction bids coming in so much higher than expected, there wouldn’t be enough grant funding available to cover the whole project, Schroeder told commissioners. Plus, the county did not have language within its request for proposals that would allow them to try and negotiate with the low bidder.

“There’s not a legal way you could pick and choose what provisions of the bid that you would accept,” said County Attorney Abby Wikelius.

Draper said the commissioners could not disclose details on the bids they received, but the bidders didn’t appear to be gouging the county. Instead, he thought the reason for the unexpectedly high bid amounts came from the project engineers’ estimates for the park improvements.

“I’ve dealt with bidding for quite a few years. I’ve dealt with engineers for a long time. The bottom line is, in my opinion, our engineer dropped the ball on your estimates,” Draper said.

Schroeder and Draper clarified that they were not referring to a county engineer, but an engineer that worked on the design for the Garvin Park updates.

“There’s a few options moving forward,” Schroeder said. “One option would be to honor the lowest bid that came in, and then the county would have to have a discussion about where do we draw the extra revenue from … That’s probably not a very appealing option.”

Another option could be to reject the bids, and re-advertise the project with some changes.

“We would remove a few items,” Schroeder said. “The bituminous overlays of the parking lots, we would remove that from the project and then have the county highway engineer work that into the bituminous plan for 2024.”

The county would also remove some landscaping items from the project, and have county parks staff do the work over the next couple years.

“The landscaping is not an essential part of the grant project,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder said he would also talk with the project engineer about reducing the amount of concrete included in the main picnic shelter area, to help reduce costs.

“With all of those changes, it would essentially be a new project that we would be bidding,” Schroeder said.

Schroeder said he believed that the county could still get companies bidding on the project if they acted right away.

“A third option is that we just put the whole project on pause, and we maybe look at collecting bids in the fall for next year’s work,” he said. “My only concern about that is that we would then only have one construction season to get all of the work done.”

In addition, the buildings already purchased for the park project still need to have footings and foundations put in.

“I don’t think we have an option of taking this price because of how high it is. It’s way over estimated budget,” Draper said. “But my personal opinion is, I think we take out the blacktop and look at next year with the highway department.”

Schroeder said the county had until June 30, 2025, to finish the Garvin Park project.

“But if we get a winter like we had last winter, then there’s not much time to finish out there,” he said.

Schroeder said even with the changes he was proposing, the county could still be about $90,000 short on funding for the park project.

“It depends on the adjustment to the concrete reduction,” he said. Reducing 15-20% of the concrete in the project would reduce the costs a little. “And then, if we re-bid it, if we get more than two bidders, that might increase our odds also.”

Draper moved that the county reject the bids, and instruct Schroeder and an engineer to put together new specifications for the Garvin Park project. The motion passed.

“I think we will be able to fulfill the advertising requirements and get bids back before the July (county board) meeting,” on July 5, Schroeder said.