(2/26) Town Manager Sean Williams asked the Parks Commission to approve or table two bids for a playground near the small pavilion at Heritage Park during February’s meeting. The Town originally received four bids; however one was received past the deadline and the other was for the wrong playground at the same park.
For the bid packets, the Park’s Commission requested the playground be suitable for ages 2-12, with an approximate square footage of 2,500 feet. The Commission requested the playground have two slides, a scavenger hunt, climbers, a quad see-saw, a wheelchair ramp, a unity spinner with two ADA seats, musical instruments and a farm theme. Member David Toohey pointed out that although both playground examples are ADA inclusive, the River Valley option was more so. The Commission also asked for a "woodcarpet playground surface," which is a type of poured-in-place surface that makes the playground more ADA compliant but also increases the price by almost $9,000.
The bids include the site work to prepare the area for the new equipment, the equipment itself, and its delivery and installation. The bids are drastically different with Playground Specialist bidding $284,215 and River Valley bidding $158,067, a difference of $126,148. The Town has previously used Playground Specialist for the other Heritage Park playground near the frisbee golf course. They have never used River Valley. If the Parks Commission picks Playground Specialist’s bid they will also need the Burgess and Town Council to approve a larger budget for the Project.
When the playground was originally removed last spring, due to safety concerns, the Burgess and Commissioners approved a budget of up to $175,000 for the replacement. Town Staff applied for a Project Open Space Grant and was awarded $120,000. Williams said the POS funding is on top of the already approved Town budget, which means the Town has $295,000 to spend on the playground.
Although Commission members preferred [overwhelmingly] the larger and more expensive Playground Specialist option, having only two bids with such a drastic difference in price was concerning. "Since there is more than $100,000 discrepancy between the two for the same project, I’d like to have another one to balance it out," said Member Kevin Conley.
No matter what the Commission decides to do, it is unlikely that the playground will be useable by this summer. With this consideration, the Commission opted to table the bid approval until next month’s meeting, allowing the members time to research their options. Williams did point out that tabling the decision does not guarantee the prices would be the same when the Commission readdressed the decision at a later date. If they decide to do a rebid it would allow the two companies that missed out to rebid, giving the Town more variety to choose from.
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