BEATRICE - The City of Beatrice received a lot of interest from contractors wanting to build the new Beatrice Fire and Rescue Headquarters.
Bids for the project were opened Thursday by city officials.


"We had as many as nine who had pulled the plans and specs, for general contractors. We ended up with five bids".


City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer said the apparent low bid was submitted by Hampton Commercial Construction, of Lincoln, at a total of $8,279,960. Bids ranged as high as about $9.5 million.


Tempelmeyer says the bid prices are favorable based on architectural estimates.
"It's lower than what both JEO had estimated and their outside company they had hired to do an estimate. Putting everything together, site acquisition, demolition and everything like that, we're still within the numbers we had indicated when we issued the bonds the first time, following a vote of the people. We issued one set of bonds already. We'll probably have to issue a second set...we had always planned on doing that. We'll just see what JEO's ultimate recommendation is".


The Beatrice City Council will be asked to approve a contractor bid at their next meeting, April 6th.


Voters approved an additional half-cent local sales tax, to help finance the project. One uncertainty….the amount of tax revenue in the future could be impacted by a potential business slowdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.


"It's too early to tell at this point. We won't know for a couple of months, before we get those numbers back from the state".


Companies submitting bids on the project also provided quotes for removal of unsuitable fill material at the project site and for a lightning protection system.
The new Beatrice Fire and Rescue Station will be constructed on a city block between 6th and 7th, Bell to Scott Streets……just south of the downtown.
Expected to take more than a year to complete, the new headquarters will replace the current fire and rescue department in the lower level of the Beatrice Municipal Auditorium.


(Below are the base bid amounts)
Hampton Commercial Construction $8,279,960
Sampson Construction $8,473,000
Cheever Construction $8,580,000
Hausman Construction $9,336,000
Kingery Construction $9,550,000