Despite a protracted bid process aggravated by steel prices and poor weather, the construction of Hempstead Hall on the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope campus appeared ready to proceed Monday with the tentative award of a low bid to an Arkansas-based company.
Abernathy Construction, of Mt. Ida, the firm which built the UACCH Student Center and rebuilt the fire-damaged Hope High School, submitted the low base bid of $9,808,000, UACCH Vice Chancellor of Finance/Administration Gerald Barber said Friday.
Barber said UACCH administrators will meet with Abernathy Construction officials Tuesday to complete the bid award.
“It will be an acceptable bid; but, we’re taking a look to see where the contractor can trim some costs,” Barber said. “We’ll meet Tuesday and, hopefully, we’ll have a contract we can award.”
Original construction estimates for the 50,000-square foot auditorium/conference center had been set at about $10 million, a figure supported by a countywide sales tax passed by voters.
Ten bids were submitted, according to Barber. The highest bid came from Morefield Construction at $11,348,000, and the second-lowest bid came from Dayes Construction, of Little Rock, at $9,897,263, he said.
“They were all from Arkansas,” Barber said.
Changes made by the UACCH Building Committee and adopted by the UACCH Board of Visitors will not materially affect the building, Barber said. Those changes were principally in the way foundation work will be done and in lowering the roof design, he said.
UACCH Chancellor Chris Thomason has been confident of concluding what has been a lengthy bid process.
“This will bode well for the county and the college in getting the most construction value for the dollar,” Thomason said. “This bid process has been very clean. The plans have not generated many questions from the general contractors, and they have been able to do their bid calculations on the bid process without having to request a bunch of additional information.”
Thomason said poor weather throughout the fall kept the project from going forward.
“We certainly were not pressured by Mother Nature to get everything secured because of what had been a hundred-year historic rains,” he quipped. “It’s been a very deliberate approach to ensure that the changes made to the project did not have an impact upon the function of Hempstead Hall. This is a very large, complex building.
“There are a lot of moving parts, and when you change something, no matter how insignificant to the eye, it has an impact upon various other areas,” Thomason said.
A start construction date will be set pending a formal contract signing.
