The Indianola City Council voted to accept the lone bid on the Downtown Streetscape Project at their meeting Monday evening, despite the bid being significantly higher than what was originally projected. City Manager Ryan Waller tells KNIA News the majority of the expenses on the project are for the infrastructure needs of replacing the water pipes on the square, which are currently not able to provide the services the city needs for residents to be safe and businesses to function.
“We have over 100 years old water and sewer lines. The water lines that IMU manages on a couple sides of the square are only four inches, so not enough to provide fire suppression for a building or to even hook a fire truck up to in the event of an emergency.”
The only bid for Indianola s downtown streetscape project came in $2.7 million over budget, potentially bringing progress on the city s facelift for the downtown Square to a halt.
City Manager Ryan Waller said the $9,645,509.80 bid, submitted by Absolute Concrete Inc., was the only bid submitted before the deadline. The original engineer s estimate for construction was $6,877,765.10.
He said Indianola City Council will hold a public hearing on the bid Monday.
Charlie Dissell, the director of Indianola Economic and Community Development, said city staff would also recommend the council drop plans to solicit an alternate bid that would cost an estimated $700,000 more because of the already high bid on the initial work. Dissell said the alternate bid would have extended the streetscape s infrastructure improvements north of the Square on Buxton and Howard streets.
The City of Indianola is a part of a program administered by Service Line Warranties of America that is sponsored and supported by the National League of Cities that allows warranty coverage on service lines for properties. City Manager Ryan Waller tells KNIA News the program is an insurance program for residents in the event anything would happen to the city service lines to an owned property.
“So if anything were to happen to the service lines, the sanitary sewer lines which convey the sewage from your house, this program would most likely cover that.”
Waller said the program is completely voluntary, and residents can sign up for it if they like.
The Indianola Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center is opening up for the summer season on May 29th, with several new safety guidelines put in place. City Manager Ryan Waller tells KNIA News city staff deserves a lot of credit for making sure the pool is able to open in a safe and responsible way.
“There are going to be some new and different requirements while you are in the facility. We will limit the amount of swimmers that can be in the area at one time, and it is going to be limited to Warren County residents only so that will help as well. We are just excited to get some sense of normalcy back in our lives.”