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WANAQUE - Bid awarded on firehouse addition
(by Teresa Edmond - Staff Writer - October 08, 2008)
WANAQUE - The borough has settled on a Franklin Lakes-based company to tackle the project of building a firehouse addition that will shelter the Fire Department’s new truck.
At a Sept. 29 special meeting, the Borough Council decided to award the $264,000 contract to Walter H. Poppe General Contractors LLC, which put out a base bid of $252,000.
The Haskell Firehouse addition is for the new fire truck that the borough anticipates will come this December.
The borough decided to go with Walter H. Poppe after discovering that the lowest bidder, Double Eagle General Contractors LLC of Pequannock, submitted its $229,000 bid with at least 13 “incurable” deficiencies, Borough Administrator Tom Carroll said.
Borough officials received 13 bids when they went out to bid the second time around on Thursday, Sept. 25. In the first round of bidding last May, all the offers had to be rejected because the lowest was $275,000.
Then municipal leaders collaborated with Arcari and Iovino Architects of Little Ferry to trim costs for the Haskell Firehouse addition so that bids would be cheaper the second time around. The construction plans’ changes were finalized three weeks ago, according to Fire Chief Tad Skawinski.
Among the suggested changes are that the addition would be built out of wood instead of the originally planned cinder, and that a staircase would be in the rear, not front of the building, as previously designed.
Arcari and Iovino approved of Walter H. Poppe because of familiarity with this company’s background and credentials, according to Borough Administrator Tom Carroll.
“All the paperwork is in order so we’re in a condition to move ahead,” he said.
According to Carroll, the highest bid the borough got during the second round was $565,000, and out of the 12 acceptable bids, only two were under $300,000.
Skawinski said he had a chance to look at the winning bid specs with Arcari and Iovino, and to him “it seems like it’ll suit what we need.”
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