SHENANGO VALLEY Officials seeking more money or changes for work on library

Bids came in significantly higher than the project budget.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- City officials will have to sharpen their pencils or come up with some more money to cover renovation work at Shenango Valley Community Library.
The lowest bids on the project came in at $1,368,598 Thursday, and that's about $120,000 more than the city has allocated for the project.
Taking those lowest bids also would eliminate putting new doors and windows in the building, upgrading the elevator and installing a new boiler and a new air chiller unit, among other things.
Replacing the two-level parking deck at the library was the project's initial focus, but the city secured a $625,000 state grant for the work and doubled the size of the plan to include renovations to the library building itself.
Sharon set side $625,000 from a bond issue borrowed for a number of capital projects to come up with a total of $1.25 million available for the library work.
The lowest base bids opened Thursday showed a combined total of just over $1.5 million.
Alternative plans
The bids, however, contained a large number of alternatives that would reduce the scope of the work.
Should the city take all of those deductions, the bids would be reduced to a total of $1,368,598.
"We'll be cutting a lot of things," said Fred Hoffman, city council president.
There is another alternative.
Michael Gasparich, city finance director, said there is still about $500,000 available in the city's bond issue and council could opt to tap some more of those funds for the project.
The apparent low base bids on the project area:
* General construction: Milcam Construction of Brookfield; $1,345,000.
* Heating and ventilating: Sheehan Plumbing & amp; Heating Inc. of Sharpsville; $108,300.
* Electrical: Penn-Ohio Electric of Masury; $59,000.