The first bidding in 2009 of the Carnegie Arts Center project was thrown out for various reasons and the plans were not 100 percent.15 sealed bids to rebuild the Carnegie Arts Center were opened by the City of Turlock on June 18, 2009.
The lowest bid by Applegate Johnston Inc. came in at $5.3 million, $2.5 million less than the architect’s construction estimate. The bad economy is believed to be the reason that even the highest bid was still under the estimated $6.2 million.
The City Council identified $7.7 million to rebuild the Carnegie Arts Center in October of 2007. Private donations of $600,000 and $4.5 million in RDA funds were included.
The City of Turlock had to check all the bids and make sure that they were all accurate. The confirmed bids were to go before the City Council on July 14, 2009 for approval.
A challenge of the bidding process caused none of the bids to be accepted and the project to be put out to bid again.
The new bids were set to open two weeks earlier than the March 18, 2010 date but some incorrect plans were shipped to a contractor so the city had to delay the bid opening two weeks to ensure that the contractor had ample time to review the proper set of plans.
“It was an error that just by chance happened, it’s never happened before, but it just happened to be this high profile job but it happened,” said City Engineer Mike Pitcock. “We got it corrected so we don’t anticipate any issues associated with that.”
On March 18, 2010, the City of Turlock opened bids for the Carnegie Arts Center Reconstruction project with the lowest bid of $5,109,000 by EMJ Corporation of Sacramento and the highest bid of $5,867,000 by SW Allen Construction of Modesto.
The opened bids will go before the Turlock City Council on April 13, 2010 as they accept the bids and consider awarding a bidder the contract for the Carnegie Arts Center Reconstruction project.
