Why Panama City rejected bids to redevelop Hurricane Michael-damaged Daffin Park
PANAMA CITY — It might take longer to revamp a local park than officials hoped.
Panama City commissioners last week reviewed four proposals from contractors to redevelop Daffin Park, which sits along Kraft Avenue and was damaged more than four years ago by Category 5 Hurricane Michael.
All were rejected because they cost about double what the city expected to pay.
"It's astronomically more than what we estimated," Mayor Greg Brudnicki said. "It wasn't $100,000 or $200,000 more, it was (about) $2 million more."
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According to the meeting's agenda, the four companies that submitted proposals for the project were BGN Contractors, Inland Construction & Engineering, Marshall Brothers Construction & Engineering and Royal American Construction.
Their bids ranged between $4.835 million and $5.319 million. City engineers estimated the project to cost about $2.448 million.
Brudnicki said when Panama City advertised for bids, it informed companies it might be about a year before construction could break ground since the city is waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to complete an environmental and historic preservation review of the land.
The review is required because FEMA agreed to reimburse Panama City up to about $800,000 for the rebuild because the park was damaged by a natural disaster.
Brudnicki said he believes part of the reason bids came back so high might be because contractors factored potential future inflation into their prices.
Panama City looks at changing project scope, doing work in-house to cut costs
He also said the city now is working to figure out cheaper ways to renovate the park. This might include altering the project's scope of work or doing certain developments in house.
The original goal of the project was to renovate the youth baseball field, multipurpose fields, pickle ball court, basketball court and playground. Surrounding parking also was slated be reconfigured, with improved lighting installed.
As of Wednesday, there was no set timeline for when reconstruction of the park might begin, or how the project might be altered to be more cost effective.
"I'd like to have started (the project) six months ago," Brudnicki said. "Quality of life is as important as any of the things we do as a municipality. ... Part of quality of life is having parks.
"There's a tremendous amount of citizens who live around that area. It's a beautiful piece of property. (An upgraded park) is something that as a civil society is 100% necessary."
This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Daffin Park: Panama City rejects bids to redevelop, cites high costs
