The Blue Mountain Community College Board of Education has approved issuing an intent to award a contract for construction of the college’s new Precision Irrigated Agriculture center in Hermiston to Wellens Farwell, Inc., of Enterprise.
The Wellens Farwell base bid package for construction came in at around $110,000 less than the other bids. BMCC received five bids for the project.
The Precision Irrigated Agriculture center in Hermiston will be the first of three major bond construction projects to break ground. The facility will be located on Oregon State University Experiment Station property off Feedville Road.
BMCC expects to issue a bid request for construction of its Workforce Training Center in Boardman sometime in April, followed by requests for bids to construct the updated Facility for Agricultural Resource Management (FARM) on the Pendleton campus.
Other bond projects to make safety and security improvements, as well as repair natural gas lines, on the Pendleton campus have already started. This summer, BMCC will replace HVAC units and electrical systems in several of its Pendleton campus buildings.
Voters approved a $23 million bond in May 2015 to fund this project, as well as the Workforce Training Center, the FARM and the other improvement projects at the college.