North Adams Airport Receives Two Bids for Administration Building
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Airport Commission only received two bids for the Administrative Building renovation project.
Peter Enzien of Stantec Consulting Services, the airport's engineer, told the commission Tuesday that bids were opened Sept. 7 from DA Sullivan & Sons of Northampton and Burke Construction of Adams.
"We received two bids, which was a little bit of a surprise based on the interest," he said. "We thought we would get four or five."
Enzien said close to 80 different companies had responded to the project and pulled bid documents so the drastically lower number was surprising.
DA Sullivan & Sons is the low bidder at $3.6 million. Burke came in at $3.8 million.
"Both bids were in about 3 percent of each other so they were pretty good," he said.
The city plans to move the vacant medical building on the north side of the airport onto the campus and use it as a new administrative building. The 8,700 square foot facility was built in 2001 on leased airport land, was donated to the city by Berkshire Health Systems.
The structure will contain administrative offices and a small public restaurant, although that will be slightly larger than the previous version with 62 seats. The second floor will also hold offices, storage and mechanicals. The building will need to be moved, expanded and renovated to meet the airport's needs.
Enzien said sub bids were opened in late August, however, no one filed bids for acoustical tile and roofing. He said the bid opening was extended for the general contractors because they had to absorb these two sub bids.
An application for a state Department of Transportation grant will have to be prepared and some other paperwork finalized before the commission can award a bid.
If all goes as planned, construction could start in mid- to late October.
In other business, Administrative Officer Michael Canales relayed a request from the airport manager to cut brush at the far end of the airport.
"We had these done a few years ago," Canales said. "But there hasn't been any cutting done and the concern is that if we let it go, we won't be able to clean it but right now we think we can clear it."
Canales said he will work with the Department of Public Works and try to make this an annual city task.
"We should be trying to stay up on that, and we want to get an annual cutting over there," he said. "We don't want it to get overgrown in the future."
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