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Mendota awards $3.38 million contract for community space project · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Mendota awards three point three eight million dollars contract for
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  community space project. Written by Matthias Werner. This article is
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  being read by an automated voice brought to you by Everlett.
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  Progress on Mendota's community space project took a step in
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  the right direction with the announcement that a construction company
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  was awarded a bid. H and H Builders, a Mendota
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  based company, was awarded the contract for the project for
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  three point three eight million dollars after some details were
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  hammered out to finalize the contract and bring the cost
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  down over the life of the project. We guaranteed that
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  there will be change orders with this to bring the
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  price down that we will know shortly. Economic Development Director
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  and city clerk Emily McInville said, the contractor knows that
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  everybody knows that it's just not in writing for this bid.
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  The project at seven hundred and four Illinois Avenue is
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  to refurbish the existing two story building and outfit it
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  to become a community event space on the first floor
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  and a coworking space on the second Builders has already
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  communicated to the city two or three ways to help
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  save money on this project. McConville said, without disclosing how
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  McConville said, the lowest acceptable bid for the seven hundred
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  and four Illinois Avenue project was three million, three hundred
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  eighty thousand, four hundred and forty eight dollars, with grant
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  funding covering one million, nine hundred eighty eight thousand, six
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  hundred and twenty five dollars and a six hundred and
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  fifty one thousand, five hundred dollars match from the city,
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  resulting in a shortfall of one million, three hundred ninety
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  one thousand, eight hundred twenty three dollars. It's at this
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  amount right now, but we will not pay that and
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  knows that, McConville said. We will be working with the
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  contractor to bring the budget down somewhere around two million,
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  six hundred fifty thousand dollars. Project director Annie Short said
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  she will attempt to help alleviate the cost of the
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  project through applying for additional grants. So one concern is
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  the timeline of the Illinois Downtown Economic Development Grant being
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  used to help support this project, with the city and
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  h and H having until May twenty twenty seven to
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  complete work on the project before the grant lapses. If
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  all else fails, and we cannot come up with the money.
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  The upstairs won't be finished, is what it comes down to.
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  Mcconvill said, we're hoping that we can come up with
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  that money, and short is going to look for those
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  grants to cover the rest of its shortfalls and the
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  rest of it. Finance Chairman John Holland said that the
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  ten percent contingency on the project's costs could bring the
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  cost down to around three million dollars, along with other
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  means at the city's disposal. There is high confidence that
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  we will have tiff tax increment financing funds available for
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  the difference between the propose two point seven million dollars
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  and three million dollars, he said. Mayor Dave Bulk echoed
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  Holland's sentiments, saying that the TIFF funds will be available,
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  avoiding what mcconval said was the alternative. We may have
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  to do things in phases to get what we can
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  get done, she said. Then we may have to strategize
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  and figure out what we have to leave until later.
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  Construction for the project is expected to begin later this month.