City Approves Additional Funds For Aquatic Center Engineers

JEO Consulting will receive at least an additional $17,827 from the city of Glenwood for “additional time and expense” the Omaha-based engineering and consulting firm says it spent from May-July helping the city alter and scale back the design of its outdoor aquatic center.

The additional funds are on top of the $443,000 the city is already contractually obligated to pay JEO for designing and developing the facility that carries a $5 million price tag. Plans for the project were scaled back earlier this year after construction bids came in up to $1 million higher than initially projected.

By a 3-1 vote, the city council approved the additional funds for JEO at its regular meeting Tuesday, Dec. 8. Council members Craig Florian, Kay LeFever and Joe Edwards voted “yes.” Susan Hirschman cast the lone “no” vote. Jessie Lundvall was absent.

According to language of the motion approved by the council, the city agrees to pay up to $19,000 “for additional services, including assistance with value engineering, looking for additional funding options, assistance with public relations and attendance at additional meetings, which have been beyond our original scope of services, for the Glenwood Aquatic Center project.”

Glenwood city administrator Brian Kissel said JEO’s request was expected.

“After the bids came in high, the council asked JEO to restructure the pool without the lazy river, which took what they called value engineering,” Glenwood City Administrator Brian Kissel said. “Then they had to work with Eriksen Construction on reducing the cost of the aquatic center.”

Kissel said JEO’s request for the additional dollars is justified.

“Absolutely. I’ve talked to members of the council and they felt it was absolutely justified,” Kissel said. “I think the council knew at that time that there was going to be some fees associated with the re-engineering of the project now that the lazy river is out.”

The $800,000-plus Lazy River was removed from plans last spring when construction bids came in higher than expected and the Charles E. Lakin Foundation withdrew a $450,000 pledge for the project.

Before making a motion to approve the additional dollars to JEO, Florian voiced frustration with the additional fees and questioned why the work JEO did in the spring wasn’t covered in the city’s original contract with the firm. Florian noted the aquatic center is the second project JEO has been hired to do for the city that came in over budget.
“When we worked with JEO on this building (City Hall) we were over budget,” Florian said. “I’m going to watch the overruns because we have a history here.”

JEO was the consulting firm the city used when it purchased the former Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Days Saints building and turned it into a new city hall and police station. That renovation was originally projected to cost around $220,000 but ended up carrying a final price tag of nearly $900,000. In an interview earlier this year, Kissel said engineering fees were a major factor in the city hall costing more than originally projected.

At last week’s meeting, Florian and Mayor Kim Clark both voiced a preference to addressing the additional JEO costs at the completion of the project.

JEO environmental department manager Lucas Billesbach, who’s worked with the city from the start of the aquatic center project, said he doesn’t expect to be coming back to the city again with more funding requests, but also reiterated that the additional expenses included in the present request are for services rendered last spring. The $17,827 is for 158.75 hours of additional work, he said. Billesbach noted the scope of services JEO agreed to provide originally are clearly stated in its contract with the city.

Edwards said he was “on the fence” regarding the additional payment to JEO, but as a businessman felt obligated to approve the request.

“We’re asking them for more and we haven’t paid them for the services they’ve already provided,” Edwards said.

The city did receive some good news last month regarding the aquatic center. Vision Iowa has awarded the city a $62,000 CAT (Community Attraction and Tourism) grant for lighting at the aquatic center that will allow for night time swimming.

The lights were one of the items removed from the project last spring as council members looked at ways to scale back the size and cost of the aquatic center.