Parking garage project dead as new bids too high

A proposed downtown parking garage -- seen as the ultimate solution to longstanding Greencastle parking issues and diminished development around the courthouse square -- met an unceremonious death Thursday.

After a second round of budget-busting bids were opened on a project that would have provided 146 free parking spaces for city visitors, downtown merchants, courthouse employees and potential shoppers, Mayor Sue Murray pronounced the two-story garage dead in its tracks.

"It would be irresponsible, at the costs we are seeing, to continue down that path," she told the Banner Graphic.

Asked point blank if that meant the idea of a parking structure like the one designed as the largest and most expensive single element of the city's $19 million Stellar Grant package was now dead, Mayor Murray responded with "I think that's fair to say."

Initial bids on the project were opened in June with even the lowest of the seven proposals nearly $1 million above engineer's estimates on the project. All bids were rejected and a rebidding process initiated.

The lowest bid received in June -- $4,387,000 -- was identically submitted by two firms, F. A. Wilhelm Construction and Hageman Construction, both of Indianapolis.

The proposed parking garage -- which was to be constructed on city-acquired property bounded by Jackson, Walnut and Indiana streets, just a block from the courthouse square -- was originally listed as a $3,393,529 construction project, according to Ratio Architects' estimates.

Thursday morning, city officials opened three bids while a fourth submission arrived past the deadline and too late to be considered for the project.

Wilhelm Construction offered the new low bid of $4,185,000, still more than three-quarters of a million dollars above the estimated construction costs.

Also submitting proposals in the rebidding round were Hannig Construction, at $4,359,000, and Hageman, $4,362,000. The disqualified bid, from Midwest Construction, was also reportedly far too high.

"We're certainly disappointed," Mayor Murray assured. "But there's absolutely no way for us (the city) to put in the money to make that happen. And there's no point in rebidding."

Mayor Murray was scheduled to with Jake Sipe of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority on Friday (today) to determine where the project now stands.

"While we could not recommend accepting any of the bids, we still need to look at our parking options," the mayor said. "The idea was to relieve the downtown parking (problem). We're still determined to make that happen."

Rejecting the parking garage bids for a second time, she said, "doesn't negate the fact we still have a problem and have to solve that problem."

The alternatives, she told the Banner Graphic, could be as simple as surface parking lots. After all, the city has already acquired the property the parking garage would have been built upon.

The parking garage project was seen as 12 months in the making with a late spring 2014 opening originally predicted.

To cover costs totaling $4.4 million project (a figure that includes soft costs and property acquisition as well as construction expenses), the city has received grants totaling $3,550,000 and had made application for a possible $600,000 development loan from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA).

"Our intent at this time," Mayor Murray said Thursday, "is not to take out that loan."

Local match for the parking garage project was to be $300,000, of which an estimated $268,000 already has been expended (including property acquisition costs). That money was from Greencastle Redevelopment Commission funds accumulated through the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds its administers for the city.