A proposed base bid design for a new Marshall Aquatic Center was projected behind Marshall City Council members Bob Byrnes, Amanda Schroeder and Amanda Schwartz during discussion at Tuesday’s city council meeting. Council members voted to approve bids and a budget for the project.

MARSHALL — Bids for a new Marshall Aquatic Center were a lot more favorable the second time around. On Tuesday, the Marshall City Council took action to accept 17 separate bid categories for different parts of the Aquatic Center project, totaling about $14.87 million.

While Marshall voters had approved the use of up to $18.37 million in local sales tax funding for the Aquatic Center, the project’s full budget is about $20 million. E.J. Moberg, administrative services director for the city of Marshall, explained some of the additional costs, and the impact of community fundraising.

“The subtotal of the project is at $19,170,406.27. That’s not the full cost of the project. Obviously, we bought the land. We’re going to need some existing pool decommissioning,” Moberg said. The project has other costs to the city, like the costs of lobbying, conducting community surveys and legal services. “With the project total added to it, our current plan is to spend just over $20 million,” he said.

Moberg said the city currently has $420,000 in donations for the project with another $200,000 pledged in the future. Marshall would also be putting about $1.1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds toward the project.

At Tuesday’s meeting, council members also acted to approve a budget for the Aquatic Center project.

Marshall City Administrator Sharon Hanson said having a scaled-down Aquatic Center design this time was “critical” to the city getting favorable bid results.

“It means we can consider the 16 different bid packages that are here tonight,” Hanson said. “The other critical factor is the competitive nature of the bids, which in my opinion the construction manager really brought that forward, and ensured that we had a more competitive environment than the first time we bid.”

The more than $400,000 contributed by community fundraising efforts also made it possible for the city to consider bid alternates to add more features to the Aquatic Center. “Without that fundraising amount, we would have had to make some strategic decisions on what alternates would have went forward, and what maybe we would have left behind for a future date,” Hanson said.

The city went back to the drawing board on the Aquatic Center this fall, after bids initially came back more than $5 million higher than anticipated. A redesign of the project scaled down the overall square footage of the pool area, and removed some additional features. The city also opted to work with a construction management firm, Contegrity Group, in going out for new bids.

Bids were opened on March 11, for a total of 16 different bid packages. Larry Filippi of Contegrity said eight local contractors bid on the project. A total of 51 bids were considered.

“We’re very pleased with the results. We had a lot of good competition, a lot of good local competition,” he said.

David Locke, with Stockwell Engineers, gave an overview of the bid package and alternates. The new Aquatic Center design still includes a zero-depth entry pool with play structures, leisure river, slides, and deep water pool.

“For the base bid, one of the changes we made was we consolidated the buildings,” Locke said. Structures like the pool mechanical building, restrooms and concessions are all located on the east side of the site, he said.

Alternates for the new design included additional water slides, a splash pad area, a climbing wall for the deep water pool, additional spray features, and additional grading and support work underneath the pool deck. “The rest of the facility was included in the base bid price,” Locke said.

“Budget-wise, I know we’re recommending the alternates,” Filippi said. “Based on what we provided back in the December estimate, we came considerably under that.”

Council members voted to award bids for different parts of Aquatic Center construction, in 17 separate votes. They also voted to approve a total budget for the project, with the project subtotal of $19.17 million.