Thanks to action taken by the Commerce City Council Monday night, the city’s recreation venues will be better places to go — to the bathroom.
The council voted unanimously to accept four low bids from Tim Nunn General Contracting, Commerce, to renovate bathrooms at the city pool, the Veterans Memorial Park ball field, Ridling Field and at the main recreation office at Veterans Memorial Park.
The total value of the contracts is $96,293.
Recreation director Scott Rodgers told the city council at its Dec. 3 work session that he asked five companies to submit bids on each of the projects, but two of the companies determined that the scope of the projects was insufficient to warrant a bid, and a third company submitted a bid on only one of the projects.
The bids are as follows:
•Swimming pool bathrooms: Nunn’s bid was $34,77, lowest of two bids.
•Veterans Memorial Park ball field bathrooms: Nunn, $28,224, lowest of three bids
•Ridling Field bathrooms: Nunn, $23,380, lowest of two bids
•Veterans Memorial Park office bathrooms: Nunn submitted the only bid — $9,912.
The work will be funded with proceeds from the special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST), and the genesis of the project was a request of Rodgers from interim city manager Tom Berry to identify the most critical SPLOST needs.
“Tom and I walked all of the recreation facilities and quickly noticed that the bathrooms at all facilities were in desperate need of repair and renovation and should be our top priority,” wrote Rodgers in a memo to the city council. “When Pete (new city manager Pete Pyrzenski) got here we toured the recreation department facilities and he agreed that the bathrooms were in desperate need of renovations.”
An initial round of bids came in at $186,000, Pyrzenski explained to the council at the work session.
On Monday night, Rodgers reported that he’d received three references for Nunn from satisfied customers.
Rodgers said the project will add a commode to the ladies’ bath room at Ridling Field, and Pyrzenski said the bathrooms will have concrete floors impervious to cleats, and commercial grade fixtures.
Pyrzenski indicated that Ridling Field may get further improvements as well.
At the work session, he told the council he sees a need for a playground, at an approximate cost of $25,000, due to the number of kids and the number of people who come to the park for games and tournament. He indicated that he may ask the council for the okay to advertise for bids for the project in February or March.
