Temporary stands set up for Union City Saturday night football game

UNION CITY — Football fans will have a place to sit Saturday night for Union City's opening game against Centreville, but it will look a bit different than planned.

Volunteers helped contractors install temporary stands Tuesday night to seat up to 600 fans alongside Alumni Field.

Original plans were to have rebuilt facilities for fans by the opening game, but delays in the project required the district to bring in a temporary fix.

A portable trailer with restrooms for fans sits near the field.

The season opener for Union City was scheduled for Thursday night however due to the heat index the game was postponed until Saturday night beginning at 6 p.m.

The renovated permanent stands, bathrooms, and pavilion will not be finished until spring.

“In time for track season to start,” Superintendent Chris Katz told his board Monday night.

The Union City School Board decided to act as its own contractor in January 2022 and hired Performance Services Inc. of Kalamazoo as construction manager to supervise the rebuilding of the decades-old community-built stadium stands sliding down the hill due to erosion.

School district voters in 2021 approved a 3-mill, 10-year sinking fund millage to pay for school improvements, including the home stands rebuild.

The assigned PSI construction manager told the board work could be started May 1 and completed by the Aug. 24 Centreville game.

That schedule was delayed in January when the board received no bids in the tight construction market. The $1.5 million project cost estimates rose to $2.4 million with inflation.

The construction manager failed to move forward on the project during the spring. That left the school system with the prospect the stadium could not be used for home games this fall.

Rather than start over with full project bids with rising construction costs, and push construction into 2024, the board decided on the temporary stands and restrooms for this season.

The board agreed to allow the subcontractor Nagel to begin work on removing the stands, excavation, and installing new concrete on the hillside.

The board agreed to seek bids on the other work which it awarded Monday night.

Because of the delays, PSI agreed to donate their management fees after a contentious May board meeting.

For the home games, Katz urged seniors and those with disabilities to park east of the stadium to enter and not climb down the hill from the upper parking lots.

“We have an asphalt path from the top of the hill behind the locker room. People will be able to park up there, go through the gate down some steps, then follow the asphalt path down” to the temporary stands, he said. Those stands are on the track right by the field.

Prior story Union City stadium reconstruction won't be ready for football season

The board approved three contracts Monday.

Dant/Clayton will provide aluminum bleacher seats, all railings, and steps to enter the press box for $197,167. Katz explained that standard railings would replace the architect’s design custom-made railing for substantial savings.

Nagel Excavation, already constructing the stadium, will provide additional water, storm drain, and sanitary sewer piping with aggregate and a trench drain for $110,000.

The board was concerned there was only one bid for the restroom facility's construction, sewer and water plumbing, and ticket pavilions.

Cook Jackson bid $483,951.  The company is working on boiler and pipe replacement in the Union City schools.

Katz said the contractor bid union wages.

Katz said two others who looked at the bid package may have been under the impression the bid was for the entire project and did not bid.

The superintendent did not recommend rebids or changes in the design. State-required approval for changes would delay the work.

Changes in Michigan law, which takes effect in March, require “we have to use the union labor rate,” Katz said, and a rebid may not change the labor costs.

Katz said the bid of $130,000 over budget included changes made to enlarge water lines for more pressure, grinders for sewage, and “the heating and air conditioning units in that.”

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The superintendent stated when you “balance that against what we saved on the aluminum, in the end, everything comes up pretty much where the original budget stood.”

The original budget of $2,456,021 is projected to be $2,372,461.

Katz said, “We still have $80,000 remaining in contingency included in budget.”

---Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com. 

This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: Temporary stands set up for Union City's Saturday night football game