GALLIPOLIS — The Gallipolis City Commission met during special session on Tuesday evening and discussed the progress of the new Gallipolis Municipal Building, as well as the ongoing construction of the Gallipolis Justice Center.

During the meeting, Gallipolis City Manager Randy Finney reported that among the bids received for the construction of the municipal building that will house the city’s administrative offices, Hoon, Inc., of Athens submitted the lowest bid at $794,450.

According to Finney, this bid is approximately $90,000 under the engineer’s estimate for the project.

Other bids that were returned for the building that will be constructed on city-owned property next to People’s Bank in the 300 block of Third Avenue were from the Kinsale Corporation of Pomeroy at $832,000 and Benmar Construction of Jackson at $864,000.

Hoon, Inc., previously constructed a secondary fire station located at the foot of Mound Hill Road for the use of the Gallipolis Fire Department and Finney reported that the low bid from the company may be related to ongoing construction the company is performing nearby.

Additionally, Finney stated that the cost of the construction will, hopefully, not exceed the bid from Hoon, Inc., as plans for the project should not require many change orders.

“He’s [an official with Hoon] very close to his numbers on what he does and if you do make changes, he’ll need to be compensated for it,” Finney said. “I think everything we’ve got pretty well cleaned up in this one so we shouldn’t see a whole lot of things that we have to do — hopefully.”

Initial bids for the construction of the project were rejected by the city during a regular meeting in early May as they were all approximately $200,000 over the engineer’s estimate for the building.

After reassessing the layout of the facility, however, and adjusting the plan, construction of the project was again put out to bid with Hoon, Inc., presenting the lowest bid.

Finney reported on his desire to see that construction of the facility begin as soon as possible.

“Hopefully, we can get this thing moving. During the next meeting, if everybody [on the commission] is here, I would like to change that to an emergency, if we can, to get that put on through so I can get them started on this project,” Finney said. “If I have to do a second reading, it’s 30 days after that, we will be into August before we can get started on this building.”

The city commission can only pass an emergency measure if all five members of the commission are present, otherwise two readings of the legislation must be held and then it will only be enacted after 30 days following the passage of the second reading.

Upon Finney’s recommendation, the commission passed the first reading of an ordinance accepting and rejecting bids for the construction of the Gallipolis Municipal Building to house the city’s administrative offices. The vote was made sans Commissioners Mike Brown and Matt Johnson, who were both absent during Tuesday’s meeting.

Finney and the commission also discussed the need of having another special meeting this month in order to pass any emergency measures related to ongoing projects within the city. This special meeting will be needed as all five members of the commission will not be present during the regular meeting on August 7.

After discussion, a tentative meeting was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 28 in the municipal courtroom, pending confirmation of attendance from all of the commissioners.

The city manager also discussed the progress of the Gallipolis Justice Center.

Finishing construction work is being completed at the site of the facility located at 518 Second Avenue and Finney reported that the construction crew is on schedule with their work. A tentative opening date is slated for late August.

During the meeting, Finney discussed the porch/front section of the facility and the higher-than-expected cost for its construction.

“I’m going to be about $20,000 over when we do the front sidewalk from what I forecasted we’d be and the back parking lot is coming in a little bit higher also,” Finney said.

According to Finney, black railing for the front porch of the justice center — which will serve as both a rail to prevent individuals from falling off of the porch and as a guard to prevent cars from driving into the facility — will cost $12,450.

The total cost for the construction of the front section of the facility is approximately $39,000, with the majority of the cost for concrete work.

Additionally, Finney stated that an additional $6,600 will be needed for metal stud gauge up-sizing from 20 to 18 gauge metal for the building due to wind strength in the Gallipolis area.

“It will be more structurally sound, but we do have a 6,600 dollar bill that we didn’t really anticipate in taking on,” Finney said. “But, it probably is the right thing to do.”

The city manager also told the commission that paving for a small portion of the front section and paving and gravel work for the side and back portions of the center will total $35,000.

According to Finney, the portion of the parking area located on the north side of the building, the old “Cox property,” will not be paved as of yet, due to the possibility of settling in that area.

“In order for him to pave that [the old Cox property], he is going to have to put some type of material underneath that because we are worried about it settling. It wasn’t compacted properly when we put it back in there, so it’s about five grand to put that material down to cover it. We’ve talked about it, and, I think, the best thing to do is leave it gravel and let it compact itself over a year, and sometime next year or the year after, we’ll pave that,” Finney said.

The extra funding needed to pay for the paving and gravel work was not included in the first reading of an ordinance later passed by the commission funding change order number 13 for the construction of the justice center. Finney, however, stated that a change order to that effect should be prepared for the commission by their next meeting.

Finney further stated that the city’s portion of the cost of the construction should be where expected.

“[Gallipolis Municipal Court Judge] Margaret [Evans] paid $540,000 for her share [of the justice center], so we’re not much over where we’d said we’d be from our standpoint,” Finney said. “We’re just trying to hold the cost down right now because we are getting close on some of this stuff.”