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Sheet & Tube demolitions bids well below estimates
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
Proposals to demolish the former Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. headquarters are considerably below the city’s estimate.
The apparent low bid is $72,000 from American Contracting, a Canfield company.
That’s about 12 percent of the city’s $594,000 estimate to remove asbestos and demolish the dilapidated structure on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near the main entrance to V&M Star.
Of the 10 proposals opened Friday by city officials for the work, only one was over the estimate.
That proposal was $687,000 from Allied Erecting & Dismantling of Youngstown.
Six were under $250,000, though one of those proposals was for only half the work.
The proposals came as no surprise to Jim C. Smith, president of Brownfield Restoration Group LLC. The Akron company is overseeing the Sheet & Tube project for the city at a cost of $37,145.
“The economy stinks, and this area is particularly hit hard,” he said. “The sheer number of bidders have skyrocketed, and the bids are low.”
City Finance Director David Bozanich said he was “a little surprised” at the amounts of the proposals.
Brownfield Restoration will take about a week to 10 days to review the proposals and make a recommendation to the city as to which company should be hired for the work, Smith said.
The city received $631,343 from the state for the demolition work and to pay for a project manager.
The city most likely will not come close to that amount. Whatever money isn’t used for this project will be kept by the state, Smith said.
The demolition work probably will begin in August and take up to 90 days to complete, said Sarah Lown, the city’s development-incentive manager.
Once the building on a half acre is gone, the location will be used for green space and possibly a V&M sign, Bozanich said.
Sheet & Tube used the office building from 1920 to 1974. Except for a year or two in the mid-1980s when it was a bar and dance club, it’s been vacant since 1974, Bozanich said.
The Sheet & Tube proposals were opened a week after a major railroad-relocation project needed for V&M Star’s $650 million expansion were all considerably over the engineer’s estimate.
The city had estimated the cost of the project at $13.56 million. The four proposals for the job ranged from $18.18 million to $20.21 million.
City officials say they under-estimated the cost of rail, and are reviewing the proposals before deciding what to do.
The city charter doesn’t permit the awarding of contracts that exceed the city’s estimate. City officials say the project most likely will have to be rebid.
The $13.56 million for the rail work is to come from the federal-stimulus package.