The Hermiston City Council will review bids for a package of construction projects including the city hall expansion at its Monday meeting.
Bids were received from five regional construction companies for the multi-project construction package. They ranged from $8.66 million to $11.48 million, with the low bid coming from Griffin Construction in The Dalles. That was slightly lower than the engineer’s estimate of $8.97 million. The projects will be funded mostly by annual payments from the Greater Hermiston Enterprise Zone.
The main project will rebuild Hermiston City Hall on its existing site as a larger facility capable of bringing the Building Permit Department and Hermiston Municipal Court into the same building while reserving room for future growth. Moving the municipal court to city hall will also free up space for growth at the Public Safety Center, which is home to the Hermiston Police Department and Umatilla County Fire District #1.
In the meantime, the renovation of the Hermiston Library basement for interim city offices is nearly complete. This space will be utilized by the library once city hall is built.
Additional projects that were included in the overall bid package for efficiency, and will coincide with the City Hall construction, include:
Rebuilding and re-aligning the parking lot between Banner Bank and city hall. This project was added to the original long-range Hermiston Urban Renewal Agency budget in 2014. HURA funds will pay for this portion of the project at an estimated cost of $278,000 to repave and standardize the lot, adding 12 parking spaces.
Replacing two blocks of aging water and sewer lines under the alley between Main Street and Gladys Avenue. The estimated cost is $237,000 which will come from the water and sewer utility fund. The pipes were first installed between 1920 and 1950 and are due for an upgrade to support the downtown commercial core. Completing this project at the same time as the city hall expansion and parking lot repaving will save construction overhead and additional replacement costs in the future.
The council will meet at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 25 at the Hermiston Community Center. The meeting will be broadcast on the city’s website.
