Grand Marais city councilors approved three bids for the public works building at their March 29 meeting.
Jim Frisell, executive vice president and principal of McGough Construction C. LLC came before the board with the bid documents. McGough has been hired by the city to act as the general contractor on the $5 million public works facility that will be built one mile west of town on the old Tomteboda property.
“All three bid packages we are recommending are within budget,” said Frisell.
The bid to supply and install Precast Architectural Concrete was awarded to Fabcon Precast, LLC at $382,000. Briese Iron Works, Inc. was awarded the bid to provide structural steel and metal fabrications for $94,250 and Northern Industrial Erectors, Inc.’s bid of $49,150 to install the structural steel and metal fabrications was accepted upon McGough’s recommendation.
“Personally, I have worked with all three of them,” Frisell said adding that he found all three companies to be very competent.
McGough will solicit bids for five large items, the concrete, roof, window, electrical and mechanical in the next couple of days, said Frisell. He expects to get replies back by April 13 and then evaluate them and bring recommendations to the council at council’s April 26 meeting.
McGough will enter into contracts directly with the successful bidders approved by the council.
“We are on track,” Frisell said. “Mid-May is the start date.”
Streetscapes
Council discussed the 2019 Highway 61 project through Grand Marais. It was learned the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) was calling the work a trunk highway project, and not a streetscape.
Grand Marais received $750,000 in Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funds that must be used for streetscapes, bike paths, and historic preservation of transportation that will have to be given back if the Highway 61 road work doesn’t allow for streetscape designs to go along with the road work.
Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux met with MnDOT District Engineer Duane Hill, project manager Roberta Dwyer, and planner Bryan Anderson the week before the Wednesday, March 29 city council meeting. “They expressed a willingness to alter their planned design process to incorporate a streetscape design at this stage of the project,” Arrowsmith DeCoux said. “I explained that we believe streetscape involves more than decorations or landscaping. Streetscape design offers powerful tools to help achieve the goals the community identified in project visioning,” Arrowsmith-DeCoux wrote in a memo to the council.
“They have expressed a willingness to be flexible and work with us,” said Arrowsmith DeCoux, who will meet again with MnDOT on April 4 with Jim Boyd, (Cook County Chamber of Commerce director) Linda Jurek (Visit Cook County director), Kristin Wharton (Active Living) and Frankie Jarchow (citizen).
Over the last year, the city held public meetings and took online suggestions from several hundred people about what they would like to see the streetscape look like after MnDOT completed the Highway 61 project.
Grand Marais City Administrator Mike Roth and Dwyer hosted an open house at city hall on Monday, Nov. 14, unveiling MnDOT drawings of proposed changes to Highway 61 as it runs through Grand Marais.
The drawings were conceptual in nature, said Dwyer, and not completed plans.
As shown, the work will start at Fall Creek and extend almost to Highway 14, a length of 11.2 miles.
Public restrooms
Council held a lively discussion about a proposal from three citizens, Sarah Hamilton, Gail Anderson, and Jayne Richards who submitted ideas to improve the city hall public restrooms.
Suggested upgrades include installing a baby changing station for the men’s room, making a new water fountain with bottle filling station, replacing the flooring with 3×3 yellow floor tiles, installing flat pebble komodo black countertops, grout, thin set, Corian backsplash, side splashes and countertops, edging, lav sinks, lav faucets, demo existing floor, prep floors tile floors, build and tile countertops.
The walls and stalls would also get a new coat of fresh paint, as well as the outside of the building, with a mural painted on the exterior.
The plan is to go with a bright seagull-inspired theme with yellow floors and gloss white walls. We would paint a few seagulls on the inside. The outside mural would be of seagulls. New larger restroom lettering for the top of the building would be added, and the ladies would look for a boat to be donated that could be placed on top of the building.
While the majority of the labor was free, council was stuck on the estimated price of flooring, which was $9,445. The total cost of the project was estimated at $12,775.
“This building’s future is in limbo,” said City Administrator Mike Roth. Replacing floors and installing new tiles, is purely cosmetic. It won’t change how many customers we can serve. But it is nice to see community members step up.
Arrowsmith Decoux agreed with Roth that while the work would improve the looks of the facilities, nothing would be accomplished in the way of serving more people.
“This shouldn’t be seen as a solution. It should be seen as getting us from a bad situation to a slightly better one,” added the mayor.
Councilor Tracy Benson said she appreciated the effort “but it bothers me that we keep band-aiding, and we haven’t solved any problems at all.” Benson said the goal should be to add more public restrooms, more service to the public, but she said she applauded the group’s effort.
“I can see why they are looking at the things they are looking at,” said Roth. “It’s definitely the floor, countertops, the fixtures that date it.”
Benson said the bathrooms should be included with the much larger discussion of replacing city hall. Roth responded by saying that “the fact is, this organization is not ready to take on another big project right now.”
Benson replied, “I’m not sure that’s the case. We need to get back on track.”
“We are not going to be able to get plans ready or financing lined up for at least a year,” for a new city hall building, said Arrowsmith Decoux. But he said the city council should have a work session to discuss plans for the city hall.
Councilor Dave Mills said he thought the plan submitted by the three ladies showed “great effort, great ideas,” but he added that he had problems spending $10,000 on the floor.
Arrowsmith DeCoux suggested taking the big ticket items out of the plan for now but instead giving the go ahead with painting the seagulls, installing the changing station, painting walls, putting the water fountain, restroom lettering, “then come back and talk about the rest of it.” Mills and Benson, and the council will invite the three ladies to an upcoming city council meeting to talk about the rest of the project.
Council approved hiring Karissa Tofte and Erika Ternes as Grand Marais library clerks and also hired Wayne Johnson as library custodian.
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