City council awards pool bid

Hartley's new pool officially has a price tag.

The city council on May 27 approved a bid from Eriksen Construction, of Blair, Neb., for $2,722,200 to build the new aquatic center. With engineering fees and other expenses included, the total price tag will run approximately $3,063,525.

The overall tally is what the council was expecting. Eriksen's bid was accepted pending legal review of the contract as well as two other alternates. If the city cannot find better bids for the shallow water slide and small deck slide within 30 days, Eriksen's contract will be upped to $2,761,500.

"We anticipate being able to find those features for less than that," City Administrator Erica Haack said after the meeting.

Two other bids were received for the project. Sande Construction, of Humboldt, submitted a bid of $3,315,854, while Branco Enterprises, of Neosha, Mo., submitted a bid of $3,330,000.

According to Haack, construction is slated to start "as soon as possible."

"[We] hope to start around the first of July," she said. "The date for completion will be determined when the contract is finalized, but we anticipate that it will be by early July of 2022, possibly sooner."

Passed in March, a $1.7 million bond issue will pay for a bulk of construction expenses. The rest of the price tag will come from donations and grants.

So far, approximately $150,000 of the $500,000 fundraising goal has been met. Council Member Brian Myers noted that total has mostly come from a single letter campaign, community meal, and the can and bottle drive spearheaded by Keith and Jackie Stoltz.

"We've barely breached the surface of fundraising," he said, noting that efforts will ramp up in the coming months.

Hartley's new aquatic center will be built at or near its current location in Neebel Park. The square footage of the pool will be comparable to the current one.

Once constructed, the facility will include a zero-entry play area with a family slide, four swimming lanes, deep water diving and swim area, basketball hoops and a volleyball net, new bathhouse, and a large deck area with shaded zones.

The pool is closed this summer to allow for demolition and construction.