Council-approved design agreement for tennis courts sparks bid concerns
May 22—MITCHELL — The city of Mitchell's bidding process may leave too much room for error.
At the May 5 regular meeting of the Mitchell City Council, council member Mike Bathke raised concerns about the city's bidding process.
Bathke referenced preliminary estimates in the meeting, which put the cost of replacing the eight tennis courts at Hitchcock Park near $ 2 million. This more than doubles the cost from the previously estimated $ 783,686, which included eight tennis courts and lighting. Hitchcock Park currently has 12 full-size tennis courts, which included four added in 2016.
"You want that to be 25% higher than what you think it's going to be just for estimating purposes," Schroeder said. "Is the estimate high? Yes. And the reason is you want it high."
When a project is completed depends on the completion dates set in the bidding and contract phases and whether a contractor can commit to the schedule, according to Schroeder. Prices tend to go up, year after year, creating an unknown, and engineers use their best guess for what prices will be in the future to create the estimate.
"There's always something you miss or that you should have included," Schroeder said. "So you want some extra dollars in there to take care of those items."
Bathke, who spent most of his adult life in the concrete business, ran a comparative analysis on an unspecified engineer's estimate and estimated the project to cost much less than the engineer's estimate.
"It's amazing how much you can save because you're not being involved with the city," Bathke said. "I don't think we're getting our best foot forward on our bids."
Bathke spoke of past bids. In April 2024,
the city rejected a lone bid to replace the traffic lights at Seventh Avenue and Main Street.
In November 2024,
the new bid was roughly half the amount of the first bid that the council entertained at the April meeting.
The Mitchell City Council, during its regular meeting on May 5, approved an agreement with SPN and Associates at an amount not to exceed $ 52,700 for a design to replace eight tennis courts at Hitchcock Park. The design plan also includes updates to lighting, fencing and reconstructing the adjacent parking lot.
Notably, the parking lot was not part of the original bid. In addition, it was not part of the discussion at the
March 3 council meeting, which approved funds in an amount not to exceed $ 65,000 to design the tennis courts and the lighting updates
and held back on appropriating the necessary funds to construct the tennis courts in the 2025 supplementary budget.
The tennis court parking lot and the tennis courts are at different elevations. In order to make the area between the parking lot and the tennis courts ADA-compliant, and the fact that the tennis courts are to be replaced, the two projects go hand in hand, according to Schroeder. Schroeder did not know of any ADA grants available to help reduce the construction costs.
The agenda item request stated staff recommends to "move forward with preliminary and final design and bidding phase." At that time, the council did not approve construction management services for an additional amount of $ 97,000.
The original plan was to rebuild the eight contiguous tennis courts south of the Mitchell Aquatic Center. However, Parks and Recreation Director Kevin Nelson noted that city staff were considering alternative options for the tennis court replacement project, including adding two courts to the set of four courts built in 2016 or adding four courts near the bandshell.
What would happen with the existing courts hasn't been detailed, potentially giving Hitchcock Park as many as 18 courts if this plan was pursued.
The design agreement calls for the tennis courts to be designed and bid as post-tension concrete, which was
a matter of lengthy discussion at the February 18 council meeting.
At the same meeting, the council approved conventional concrete for the pickleball courts to be built at Hitchcock Park, an installation process
with a significantly shorter lifespan, according to SPN's Jeff McCormick.
The post-tension concrete estimate for pickleball courts was roughly 25% more expensive than the conventional concrete estimate, according to Schroeder.
Bathke hopes that the Mitchell Tennis Association and the Mitchell School District, which both use the tennis courts at Hitchcock Park for practice and tournament play, will jointly fund the expense of the project with the city.
In 2016, these three organizations spent $ 300,000 to install four tennis courts at Hitchcock Park, but did so without post-tension. Within the first two years, there were cracks on the courts, according to Mitchell Tennis Association president Jacob Dahme.
The city of Mitchell and the Mitchell School District have had no formal conversation about paying any sums toward the tennis court replacement project, according to Mitchell School District business manager and Mitchell Technical President Theresa Kriese.
According to conversations Bathke has had with tennis association leaders, which Bathke shared with the council, the tennis association is unwilling to pay toward a project that does not have post-tension concrete.
"They want this to last the rest of their life. They don't want to have to mess with it again," Bathke said.
