The Sandy Springs City Council approved a $159,331 bid for a timber wall replacement at the basketball courts in Hammond Park.
“The wall has outlived its useful life and needs replacement. Currently, water flows down behind the wall and leeches onto the courts bringing a lot of sediment,” Brent Walker, the city’s new Recreation and Parks Director, told the city council during its Feb. 6 meeting.
White Oak Landscaping Co. was the lowest qualified bidder, he said. An $8,085 bid by Bravo Fence LLC was considered nonresponsive since the company only bid on the fencing part of the project.
The replacement will be a modular block wall with inlets above the wall to redirect the water away from the courts, he said. The contractor will replace fencing and relocate the existing stairway to the east of its existing location.
White Oak Landscaping Co. has completed several jobs for the city including landscaping work at Windsor Meadows. This work showed the company to be a reliable bidder, Walker said.
Councilmember Tibby DeJulio questioned the disparity of bid amounts, ranging from $8,085 to almost $400,000.
Walker explained that comparable bids or those within $100,000 of each other are typically more practical and better bidders. Projects always have bids that put too much profit margin in the project. The bidders received the same set of plans and documents on which they were to base their bid, he said.
Councilmember Jody Reichel asked about a gate for pickleball courts. Walker said that work on the Hammond Park courts would be within a separate scope of work in a different project. Bids and quotes are being collected for that project.
