By T. Scott Boatright
The Lincoln Parish Police Jury voted to accept a low base bid of $630,125 for planned renovation work at the Lincoln Parish Library (LPL) planned to start on Nov. 2 during a special-called LPPJ meeting at the Lincoln Parish Courthouse.
Womack & Sons Construction, LLC, of Harrisonburg submitted the accepted low bid that will see the LPL receive new painting and new flooring.
That base bid was significantly higher than the $500,000 budgeted for the project, but Parish Administrator Courtney Hall said the additional $130,125 will be paid through some of the LPL’s reserves.
Plans to also install new LED lighting throughout the library were tabled, at least for now. Womack & Sons’ bid to include the lighting as part of an alternative bid would have cost an additional $498,580.
“That has to be pushed back for now,” Hall said.
Womack & Son’s bid for alternate additional work was actually the highest out of those alternate additional bids, with that low bid for adding mostly lighting improvements submitted by RT&F Construction being an additional $260,820.
Following are the five received bids, starting with the base bid, then the alternative bid and finally the combined total bid.
• Conway Boone Construction, LLC (Ruston) — $817,000/$276,500/$1,093,500
• Mann’s Construction (West Monroe) — $730,000/$286,000/$1,016,000
• RT&F Construction, LLC (New Braunfels, Texas) — $728,250/$260,820/$989,070
• Streeter Construction (Ruston) — $717,660/$268,525/$986,185
• Womack & Sons (Harrisonburg) — $630,125/$498,580/$1,128,705
“The carpet in our library is 22 years old,” said LPL Board of Control Chair Bill Jones. “It’s served its useful life. We’re going to put LBL flooring in all throughout the library and we’ll use area rugs where appropriate, like in the Children’s Section. That’s going to be so much better when we have it.
“And the library needs painting. The painting is 22 years old, too. I’m sorry we had to have a special meeting called to do this. I appreciate it. The reason it’s important to us is because we need to get the bid awarded because that is a huge amount of flooring. We don’t want to have any holdup on the materials.”
Jones said hopes are that the work will begin on Nov. 2 with an end date set for mid-February.
“We’re going to keep the library open to the best of our abilities,” Jones said. “And it’ll be a mess. It’ll be chaos at times — a challenge. But we’ll try to keep it open as much as we can.”
Jones said the only anticipated LPL closure will come in the last of four phases planned for the work.
Phase 1 is adding new flooring and painting the main part of the library and will take four weeks. Phase 2 will be work on the Children’s Section and Chautauqua Gallery and will take around four weeks to complete. Phase 3 will take a couple of weeks to complete but will keep the same flooring, and Phase 4 will involve renovating the entryway foyer and restrooms.
“And of course we’re going to work with the contractors throughout the process, with (LPL) staff there to help even if they have to stay late — whatever they have to do,” Jones said. “And we hope to keep the library open until that last week. We hope Phase 4 will only take that one week to complete.”
