By By Adam Prestridge
Repairing the Atmore Municipal Airport may take a lot longer than city officials expected.
Monday afternoon during the Atmore City Council meeting Mayor Howard Shell informed the council that the bids for developing the site and construction of the apron, as well as the taxiway and access road were too steep and couldn't be covered by the grants received.
"Unfortunately the bids came in high," Shell said. "Through our engineering firm (Volkert &Associates, Inc.) notified the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and their advice to us to our engineering firm is that the project be redesigned and re-bid on that particular phase of the project."
John G. Walton Construction Company, Inc. was the lowest bidder with a bid of $1,544,462.89 followed by the bid of $1,816,115.91 by Hosea O. Weaver &Sons, Inc. The grant funds the city has received for this project totaled only $1,083,000.
Shell did have a bit of good news regarding the airport's construction of the aircraft hanger and perimeter fence.
M.W. Rogers Construction Company, LLC. submitted the lowest bid of $768,839 to perform the work, which was $37,000 over the grant funding. Shell added that additional funds to accept the bid could possibly be obtained.
"After our engineering firm consulted again with the FAA finding that the low bid was over the amount of the grant we had in place for that," Shell said. "They have advised Volkert that this bid can stand because they think they will be able to increase the grant the additional funds to make it stand."
G.A. West &Company, Inc. was the second lowest bidder with a bid of $1,026,641.
The council went on to unanimously vote to allow Volkert &Associates to take whatever steps needed to go out for bids again to complete the projects.