Police project more hands-on

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

April 26, 2008 01:37 am

— Starting over with a more hands-on approach is the new direction for Pauls Valley city officials as they look to move forward with renovation plans for a new local police facility.
After a handful of weeks of crunching the numbers members of the PV City Council have decided not to hire a contractor for the project that will someday convert a former hardware store into the new home of local police.
Instead, the city means to act as its own contractor when it comes to the planned changes at the building formerly housing Blackburn’s Home Center in the 400 block of West Paul.
“My recommendation is to reject all the bids that were already received for the police station,” City Manager James Frizell told four council members during a meeting earlier this week.
The lowest of the four bids submitted for the project was $1.67 million.
That number was dropped into the range of about $1.3 million after a closer look by local officials resulted in various items being removed from the project plans.
The council was clearly still uneasy with the project’s cost as a vote of 4-0 was made to follow Frizell’s recommendation and reject the bids. Mayor Tim Gamble was the only council member not present at the meeting.
“I’m assuming that if we serve as our own contractor and sub-contract it out then it will save us money,” Councilman Gary Alfred said.
He and the rest of the council were assured by Frizell the idea is indeed to chop even more money off the project’s overall cost.
“That’s the thinking,” Frizell said.
Much of the council’s previous concerns were on the size of the renovation in compared to original plans that included a smaller building.
Plans for the project actually got going in 2004 when local police officials began work with an architect.
At that time plans called for a smaller, newer structure at a different site. Those plans changed direction in September 2006 when the city acquired the larger hardware store with a new police station in mind.
Officials have said this new building is 14,166 square feet.
With the city serving as its own contractor, Frizell admitted the renovation work would likely be slowed down but hopefully not by much.
“If we have a contractor then we’ll get it done a lot faster than if we do it ourselves,” he said.
“Once we do get started it would take six to eight months, and that’s a bare minimum.”