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Design services approved for animal shelter

Design services approved for animal shelter

Jackson County Commissioners voted unanimously Jan. 21 to approve a design services contract for the animal shelter project planned for the Green Energy Park property.

McMillan Pazden Smith will complete construction and design documents for both the animal rescue center and the entire Green Energy Park campus, also administering subsequent construction. The total cost of these services will be $397,000, or 10 percent of the entire project. That cost includes $217,353 for the animal rescue center and $179,647 for the remainder of the Green Energy Park campus. Additional campus improvements will include a walking trail and dog park atop the closed landfill and grading of the entire facility. However, the county will receive $60,108 in credit toward that total price tag to account for schematic and programming fees already paid to the firm for earlier phases of the project.

According to the timeline outlined in the contract, it will be 30 weeks until bids can be opened. This will include six weeks for design development, four weeks to deliver an updated cost estimate, 12 weeks to prepare construction documents, four weeks for review and permitting and four weeks for bidding and negotiation.

That schedule puts the project a few months behind the timeframe County Manager Don Adams had hoped for. In the fall he told commissioners that he anticipated putting the project out for bid in spring 2020, awarding the bid in early summer and completing the project in summer 2021. The timeline outlined in the contract would result in an August bid opening.

A $5.39 million project ordinance passed in December provides $3.97 million for construction, of which about $3 million would be used to build the animal shelter. The remaining funds will be used to build a parking area, remake the closed landfill into a park with walking trails and complete grading on the site. Rounding out the $5.39 million is $437,000 for architecture and engineering fees, $40,000 for engineering and permitting, $347,000 for furnishings and fixtures and $596,000 in contingency funds.