West Windsor’s Plans for a new dog park and skate park in West Windsor Community Park will have to wait.
Township Council voted unanimously to reject the lone bid submitted for the project on Monday, June 26. Green Construction of South River submitted a bid of $364,298 by the June 13 deadline — well over the $250,”000 that had been budgeted for the project by the township.
“I don’t know if they were aware of what we had budgeted for the project,” said Business Administrator Chris Marion. “If I were submitting a municipal bid, I’d look into their budget to see what they had to work with.”
Shiva Yaragatti, engineer for Green Construction, confirmed that he was not aware of the town’s budgeted cost. He says his company’s bid is competitive and he doubts the township will be able to find one close to $250,”000. “Maybe when they estimated costs, they used last year’s prices,” says Yaragatti of the disparity in budgeted versus projected cost.
Marion said the township is now accepting new bids for the improvements, which are to include a dog park and a skate park. The new park features were originally slated for completion by the end of this summer.
Township Engineer James Parvesse said that now the project will not be started before mid-August or September in a best-case scenario. He added, “realistically, we will probably have an opening in the spring.”
Said Marion: “If we see more bids come in, and they’re all higher, we’ll have to look at the plan and assess whether we need to re-draft the plan.”
Parvesse says at this point there is no need to scrap the original plan and start again. If the township doesn’t receive a satisfactory bid, council can look into using different materials to build an alternative version of the current plan.
