Downtown Parking Garage to Cost $11.7 Million

By Alyssa Schnugg
Staff writer
alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

Bathrooms and painted walls pushed the cost of constructing a downtown parking garage over budget by $700K; however, the Downtown Parking Advisory Commission members said Friday they are confident they will have enough funds to pay the overage.

The city received 10 bid packages recently after a request for proposal was advertised for the downtown parking garage.
“We got really good bids,” said Casey Rogers with Innovative Construction Management. “I’m really happy with the participation we received.”
Instead of hiring one general contractor, the city chose to bid each trade separately, receiving bids for plumbing, electrical, concrete and more.
Totaling up all of the bids using the lowest and best ones, the base bid came to $9,177,000.
However, adding on bathrooms and painting the interior of the structure made the total price jump to $11.7 million.
The price also includes a 2 percent contingency, design costs and utility relocation.
Mayor Robyn Tannehill said the Oxford Tourism Council is paying for the bathrooms that are estimated to cost $222,000.
The remaining $500K will come from the Parking Department that has about $1.6 million in cash in the bank.
During the meeting Friday, Tannehill said she was concerned about taking the funds from the Parking Department’s coffers that have been saved up to help pay for maintenance and any repairs that come up.
“You also have your first bond payment to make in a year, which will come out of that money,” she said.
The estimated cost of the bond payment is around $700K.
DPAC member Kevin Frye said based on the amount of money raised by parking meters over the last four years, the city should see at least about $684,000 in revenue from the meters over the next year.
“We have data we’ve been collecting for four years,” Frye said. “I have full confidence in our revenue model.”
The board voted to recommend to the Board of Aldermen to approve the bid package with the two alternates at $11.7 million. The aldermen will consider the bids at an upcoming meeting.