City Beat: Sidewalk rule holds up Loren Cook development

City code requires construction of a nearly half-mile long sidewalk before Loren Cook Co. can build a 7,100-square-foot addition and create 20 jobs.

Vice President Loren Cook II thinks that’s unreasonable.

At the Aug. 24 Springfield City Council meeting, Cook spoke in favor of a bill to allow a city development committee to approve exceptions to the January 2014 code revision that requires developers build sidewalks alongside new commercial construction.

Two weeks earlier, council unanimously rezoned two vacant residential lots west of Cook Co.’s sprawling 2015 E. Dale St. headquarters to allow the industrial blowers and exhaust systems manufacturer to add office space.

For Cook, that amounts to a $40,000 snag. That’s the cost estimate for a 2,500-square-foot sidewalk to be added along the southern and eastern edges of the 328,000-square-foot plant.

But based on the rezoning to a heavy manufacturing district, city code calls for the sidewalk – or payment in lieu of construction so the city can build the sidewalk.

“Right now, there is just one little section of sidewalks in the area,” Cook said, adding the plant expansion would make way for at least 19 new information technology jobs that currently are filled in Kansas City, Dallas and India. “The rest of the area, even that residential section, and the area by Pepsi and Bass Pro, there are no sidewalks at all.”

Councilwoman Kristi Fulnecky proposed the bill giving the Administrative Review Committee authority to approve sidewalk exceptions.

“We need to add jobs. We don’t need to place burdens on businesses,” Fulnecky said.

Greater Springfield Board of Realtors Executive Jessica Hickok, Ozarks Coca-Cola/Dr Pepper Bottling Co. Vice President of Corporate Strategy Sally Hargis and Buxton-Kubik-Dodd Inc. President Brian Kubik each spoke in favor of amending the requirements.

Kubik said he and Anderson Engineering Inc. President Neil Brady, the civil engineer on the expansion, both served on the review board responsible for proposing the sidewalk requirements.

“We certainly didn’t realize that this was going to be happening,” Kubik told council. “With new building, sure we want new sidewalks in front, but not this way.”

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission oppose amending the current rules, said Planning and Development Director Mary Lilly Smith. She said some members were against lessening sidewalk requirements, while others were against its review committee having to determine who would be granted exceptions. Planning and Zoning also declined a plan to have Cook Co. build a sidewalk just in front of the addition, Kubik said.

Smith said city staff supports the changes.

Councilman Craig Hosmer, who initially expressed support for the Planning and Zoning Commission decision, said after hearing Cook speak, the requirement the company faces is unreasonable.

“Maybe the zoning laws need to be looked at because, I agree, this doesn’t make any sense,” Hosmer said.

The bill is scheduled for a second reading and vote Sept. 14.

Bids dismissed
Two low bids were thrown out on a multimillion-dollar city sewer rehabilitation project after it surfaced that a key subcontractor didn’t attend a mandatory prebid meeting. It’s a tough lesson for subcontractor Neal Bough of Stockton-based Neal’s Construction LLC, and according to Bough, it’s the taxpayers who are being punished.

Bough requested a resolution approving the bid and specifications of Rosetta Construction LLC be pulled off the consent agenda at the Aug. 24 meeting before telling council members he misinterpreted bidding instructions and now the city is paying over $800,000 too much due to a technicality. Bough said he thought of the project work – replacing some bad pipe with new pipe – as being new construction, not rehabilitation.

Bough said after reading Article V in the 465-page bid instructions, he felt confident he didn’t need to attend the prebid meeting.

“I know now what the city’s intentions were, but it’s just a huge punishment to everybody for a misinterpretation,” he said. “It should not be a confusing process to figure out how to bid.

“You should want to find as many qualified bidders as you can.”

Neal’s Construction was listed as a subcontractor for both Pewaukee, Wis.-based Visu-Sewer Inc. and O’Fallon-based Sak Construction LLC. According to information Bough provided to councilmembers, Visu-Sewer had the lowest base bid at $8.9 million, and Sak Construction came in second at $9.6 million. Both bids were thrown out, however, and Rosetta Construction received the nod at just under $9.8 million. The difference between the top bid and Rosetta was over $855,000.

“I’m dumbfounded,” Bough said of council’s unanimous decision to not rebid the now-$10.2 million project. “That’s not chump change.”

Steve Meyer, director of Springfield’s Environmental Services, said the instructions to bidders have to be followed to make sure all contractors are treated the same.

“When the city clerk opens the bids, we set the date and the place, and if a bidder is five minutes late, his bid is not opened,” Meyer said.

“The process is rigid to protect the contractors as well as the city. Let’s say we did decide to let Neal Bough rebid and he came in $10 less than Rosetta Construction. Then, we’d have to award the project to Neal, and that would be very unfair to Rosetta Construction.”