“On April 4th the city held a bid opening for the East River Walk project.  We received one bid for the project that came in at $5.53 million, which was substantially higher than our engineering and design estimate. 

Because of the much higher than expected cost, City Council voted to reject the bid at Monday night’s Council meeting.  After evaluating and meeting with our internal team on this project, we believe this may be a blessing in disguise. Immediately the East Riverwalk Design and Engineering team started analyzing cost savings measures that wouldn’t alter the appearance of the park, but rather provide a new approach and potentially save significant costs in a re-bid.

We will take this opportunity to reset, re-engineer and go out for re-bid.  We fully expect that we will be able to get multiple bids next time along with a more favorable bid due to the creativity of many pushing to get this project completed. Once we accept a new bid, we expect the contractor will be able to start construction immediately and prevent any further delays. 

I’m a firm believer of this project and we WILL make this project happen and finally realize the potential of our Riverfront.  I have said from the beginning as my term as Mayor that we should NOT finance this project on the backs of our future generations and overload them with debt and obligations to make one project happen.  We are accomplishing that goal with nearly $1.6 million in grants and hundreds of thousands of dollars in philanthropy.  Again, I express that we will complete this park and I fully expect that it will break ground this summer. 

Many smart, savvy, and creative minds are putting countless hours into making sure this project happens, including the unified support of City Council and I personally can’t be more proud of everyone involved in the project.”– Mayor Chris Curtis