The Rickeman Field grandstand replacement project continues to be in a holding pattern. The Dell Rapids City Council decided to table the decision on awarding the bidding of the project during their regular meeting on Monday, July 20th.
The council took no action on the putting the project out for bid during their meeting on June 1st. Several members of the Dell Rapids Baseball Association asked the council to reconsider and spoke on the need to replace the grandstand during the council’s next meeting on June 15th. During that meeting, the city council voted to put the project out for bid.
The project only received one bid offer. That bid was from Seating and Athletic Enterprises, LLC of Ellendale, MN for $58,112. That bid was under the initial estimate of $64,000 for the grandstand with pressbox portion of the project.
The electrical portion of the project, which is separate, carried three options ranging in price from $4,700 to $8,400. The options were to leave the electrical box where it is and remounting it to the new grandstand or move it to a new location while replacing the grandstand.
The cheaper electrical option is more of a temporary fix according to Dell Rapids Public Works Director Larry Schildhauer. “I would say the cheaper bid is more of a temporary fix. We’re going to have to re-do it. And that would involve tearing out some of the materials that we put in for the temporary. So we’ll eventually be spending more money than if we did it the right way.”
The concrete slab that would need to be set underneath the grandstand, which is estimated to be a size of 34 foot by 28 foot, was estimated to be around $9,000. Councilman Mark Crisp said, “That’s kind of spendy…..it’s definitely something we need to take a look at. How much concrete do we need? How thick does it need to be? We should really have some quotes on that before approving.” He also said, “This may bring it into budget if you get the appropriate numbers on your concrete.”
The total cost of the project with new grandstand and pressbox, electrical work, and concrete work came to a total of around $76,000, which is about $6,000 over the $70,000 budget amount.
A motion by Councilman Gary Haak to table the decision on awarding the bid project was made and the second was made by Councilman Lee Burggraff. Prior to the vote of the motion, Councilman Mike Geraets presented another idea to the council about the project.
“I was approached by St Mary School that they would be willing to let us use their bleachers they purchased. They have no use for them other than football season, and baseball season and football season don’t overlap….It’s just a matter of moving them from the field,” said Gearets. He also mentioned an idea of putting a comfort station where the current grandstand sits and then put a pressbox on top of the comfort station while using the bleachers owned by St Mary school.
The vote passed unanimously to table the decision on the project to get more information on the cost of concrete and also to gather more information about the new idea presented by Geraets.