Eight bid packages with a total price tag of $2.11 million were approved to remodel a 20,000-square-foot space on the second floor of the building at 360 Westfield Ave. as part of the effort to develop a smart automation center. The bids are contingent on the college finalizing a lease agreement with TechWorks for the manufacturing training facility.
Trustees rejected a ninth bid package for painting, floor striping, coatings and wall/ceiling surface prep. Construction manager Peters Construction Corp., which solicited the bids, recommended rejecting that proposal while approving the others. Three of the accepted bids were the lowest of multiple proposals and the other five packages only had one bid.
"All the other bid packages in total came in about where they estimated," Dan Gillen, Hawkeye's vice president of administration and finance, told the board. The single painting bid was $480,000. Accepting it would have brought the total cost $2.59 million — well above the $2.24 million estimate.
Peters will rebid the painting contract. It would then come to a later trustees meeting for approval.
"The nice thing is painting is at the end of the process," said Hawkeye President Todd Holcomb, so there is time to go through the rebidding process.
In the meantime, the construction manager and contractors will work to identify value engineering options with the aim of reducing costs. According to a board memo, the most significant potential savings would be to complete concrete topping demolition during daytime business hours at a savings of $70,000.
The total project estimate is $5.12 million. That includes anticipated costs of $2 million for equipment and $523,000 for furniture and fixtures as well as the construction manager contract of $144,530. Money to pay for the project, expected to take six months to complete, will come from the college's plant fund.
"They have said that the timeline is good," Aaron Sauerbrei, Hawkeye's executive director of business and community education, said of Peters' officials. The company doesn't anticipate delays related to acquiring construction materials. Once work is done on the smart automation center, the college will immediately put it to use.
"We actually start classes, a cohort, in January," Sauerbrei noted.
The center plans to work with small- and medium-sized companies that need help updating equipment and training workers. The college will take steps to ensure the center can join the Smart Automation Certification Alliance, or SACA. With that designation, it could draw participants not only from across Iowa but from neighboring states.
Hawkeye's current use of TechWorks includes lab space for the IGNITE: Introduction to Advanced Manufacturing course. Plans for the smart automation center will build on what that course offers to adult learners and Waterloo Career Center students.
©2022 Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, Iowa). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
