Hello and happy Tuesday. Here are some events to know about as you go through the week:
A free two-week series called “A parent’s survival guide to living with teens” will begin tonight starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Seward Civic Center. Brenda Jennings of Motivate 2 Communicate will be the presenter.
The Seward Senior Center will be celebrating veterans and November birthdays tomorrow. A meal will be served at noon and the Kiwanis KiTones will sing at 1 p.m.
The Seward County Genealogical Society will hold its monthly meeting Nov. 15 at 10:30 a.m. in the library of the Seward Civic Center.
The fifth annual Home for the Holidays show and vendor fair will take place this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the 4-H building on the Seward County fairgrounds.
Tru-Built Construction of Lincoln will build Milford’s new municipal building.
The Milford City Council awarded the project bid to Tru-Built at its Nov. 6 meeting after spending some time scaling the project down to fit its $1.35 million budget.
The council compared bids from 10 contractors at its October meeting. Tru-Built submitted the low bid at around $1,499,000—quite a bit higher than the city’s $1.35 million budget which was partially funded by an $800,000 bond.
City funds and money from the Community Betterment Fund also were allotted for the project.
Between the council’s October and November meetings, its building committee and Carlson West Povondra Architects met to see what could be eliminated from the project to lower the cost.
Matt Krause with Carlson West Povondra said they cut about $113,000 out of the project.
Cuts included eliminating the garage for police vehicles, changes in steel for the structure, taking ID card readers off the building and eliminating the parking lot, among other smaller items.
“Most of the cuts here are pretty minimal. Most of them a user wouldn’t notice,” Krause said.
However, most of them can be added later as funding allows. For example, the side of the building that would have the garage will be constructed to allow for an easy addition later.
The parking lot will still be paved, but it will be paid for out of a different fund.
“We understand it’s probably in the project, it’s just coming from a different pot of money,” Krause said.
The lot will cost $15,000 for the paving alone. Council member Scott Bashore said it may come out of the Streets budget, but that decision has yet to be made.
Bashore said the garage will be at the top of the priority list as funding becomes available.
With the changes, Krause estimated the new cost at around $1,308,000. He said Tru-Built and the architects will need some time—more than the week they had—to rework exact numbers.
“They’re not to the penny yet. There are some drawings on the architect’s end we have to do so they (Tru-Built) can get some accurate pricing. They were difficult to do in that short amount of time,” Krause said. “Some of these are estimated cost savings.”
He said the cuts didn’t affect the character or look of the building.
“We were trying to avoid that,” Krause said.
Council member Patrick Kelley made a motion to contract with Tru-Built, with the cost of the project not to exceed $1,350,000. The first change order on the project will be a deduction in cost to whatever the real number is, pending Tru-Built’s re-calculation after the changes.
Steve Powell with Tru-Built said they hope to break ground and have the structure up before winter sets in, if the weather allows.
