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3 <br />Memorandum <br />To: Board of Commissioners <br />John Link, County Manager <br />From: David Stancil, ERC Director <br />Lori Taft, Recreation and Parks Management Director <br />Date: May 2, 2003 <br />Re: Maple View Field -Possible Options <br />Over the last few months, a staff team comprised of ourselves, County Engineer <br />Paul Thames, Purchasing and Central Services Director Pam Jones and Open <br />Space Design Specialist Kimberly Siran have worked to evaluate the received <br />bids for the Maple View Soccer Field project and identify alternatives or options <br />for the Board to consider for this project. <br />As was conveyed to the Board last month, the reason for this evaluation is the <br />fact that bids for the project came in well over the estimated project cost of $75- <br />100,000. <br />To recap, on November 11 the Board of Commissioners approved the site design <br />of the proposed Maple View Soccer Field, to be constructed on 6-acres of land <br />leased by Bob and Chris Nutter, owners of Maple View Farm. Following site plan <br />approval in January, construction drawings and documents were prepared and <br />the project was placed for bid in February. Bids were received from three <br />contractors on February 18, with Polovick Construction of Raleigh the low bidder <br />at $251,000. <br />In the end, we think there are a number of reasons why the project costs have <br />escalated. Some of the primary reasons are: <br />1. The N.C. State Parks Guidebook, the source of the original ($60,000) field <br />estimate, is a general guide and does not take into account additional <br />infrastructure and appurtenances associated with building a field, or the <br />differential in construction costs from one region to another within the <br />State (the guidebook has just recently been updated) <br />2. The project as eventually approved included significant costs for <br />landscaping, parking, fencing and irrigation/water storage <br />3. The cost of constructing one field on its own requires a much greater <br />proportional cost of field infrastructure (no economies of scale as might be <br />seen with construction of several fields that can share parking, fencing, <br />irrigation etc) <br />4. Construction costs in the Triangle region trend considerably higher than <br />other areas of the State <br />