Assistant City Manager Todd Darden told the council during its meeting there have been numerous changes to the project since it began, but the realization a stretch of downtown roadway had been left out of the original bid has forced them to go back to the negotiating table with Price Construction.

“Basically, we've had numerous things that have occurred as a result of our Street Bond Project. As you know, we had funds left over from allowing Price Construction to do a different type of construction method on Main, Scurry, First and Second streets,” said Darden. “We went to a milling operation there, and had about $800,000 in savings associated with that change. In doing so, we talked about picking some other areas up for construction, and the other area we looked at was Lancaster Street. The council approved the replacement of the utilities there first, and that has been completed under a separate bid packet. The next thing we looked at with Price was to rehab the street, and that amount came in just a little less than $700,000, which is also included in this change order.

“Also, when we were looking at what areas to hardscape in the downtown area and the projects that were going on in that area... We inadvertently left out a quadrant on Main Street that has a lot of activity going with it in the way of property owners coming in and making improvements to their buildings and bringing those buildings back to a viable use. We looked at asking Price to come back and do the streetscaping in that section between Second Street and First Street. We had them give it to us in a base bid and it was right at $800,000. We sat down with them to renegotiate and see how we could bring that cost back into line with some of the other things we were doing in the Main Street and Second Street areas, and we just couldn't come to an agreement on the price.”

Darden said the reason the city and Price Construction haven't been able to agree on a price has to do with the way it was bid out, with some done by a unit cost and other portions on lump-sum bids.

“The reason we were unable to come to an agreement on a price is because all of our alternate bids on Main medians, Main Street from Third to Fourth streets, Main from Third to Second, Runnels from Second to Third, those were all lump sum bids,” said Darden. “All of the other work that we've had done in this project was done on unit costs. So it's hard to tie them to unit costs in that portion of the project.”

Darden suggested — and the council agreed — the city take a credit from Price Construction regarding the areas in question and simply rebid them out.

“Our recommendation is we change the $331,000 credit they are giving us... We would deduct Runnels Street from Third to Second, the southwest quadrant of Second and Runnels, and go out for bid on Main Street from Second to First Street, and the base bid will be the southeast quadrant of Main from Second Street to the alley,” he said. “The second alternate for the bid would be from the alley to First Street on the Credit Union side, and alternate one would be from Second Street to the alley, which would be the old State National Bank, and alternate three would be the boxcar area.”

Also during Tuesday night's meeting, the council:

• Approved the contract between the city and Lubbock-based contractor Craig Wallace Construction for the construction of a new clubhouse at the Comanche Trail Golf Course. The contract was approved for $450,017.

• Approved a request from the city's Conventions and Visitors Bureau to erect a permanent sign at the North Side Water Tower site to advertise Big Spring as the new Lighted Poinsettia Capital of Texas, a designation recently made by the Texas Department of Transportation.

• Gave the go ahead to begin efforts to secure an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) made available through the the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The grant, if awarded to the city, would be worth approximately $75,000 and used to make city facilities more energy efficient.

• Agreed to cast the municipality's votes for a seat on the Howard County Appraisal District Board of Directors in favor of Tim Blackshear.

Contact Staff Writer Thomas Jenkins at 263-7331 ext. 232 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it