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Okoboji City Council Hopes Second Time Is The Charm For Speier Park Playground Bids

November 16, 2023 Steve Schwaller

(Okoboji)– The city of Okoboji will be going back out for bids next month on a project to revamp the playground at Speier Park. Only one bid was received late last summer which wound up being rejected by the city council after it came in much higher than expected. A date of December 7th has been set for a second attempt at getting bids.

An engineer on the project told the council earlier this week he’s recommending a change in the construction schedule to hopefully attract more bids this time around…

“One being letting the contractor, both contractors, civil and playground, work as soon as they can in the spring or through most of the summer. So basically giving them the option whenever they’re available to start, which could eat up potentially some or most of the summer. This provides more flexibility which should provide a better bid price at that time. And then option two would be kind of setting a more strict schedule in the fall.”

Councilman Jim Hentges suggested somewhat of a hybrid of those options, calling for the work to be done either in early spring through mid-June, or mid-August and into the fall…

“We had one whopping bid on the last one, so we’re going to have to be a little bit more flexible, I feel. I don’t see a problem going into mid-June.”

Following some further discussion the council opted to go along with Hentges’ suggestion. A public hearing on the project and bid opening is set for the council’s next regular meeting December 12th.

The project at Speier Park will NOT impact the shelter house or the tennis or pickleball courts.

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