Around $7 million in bonds were approved for the Camp Verde Sports Complex in November 2016.
At the time, the Camp Verde Town Manager Russ Martin said that he hoped that construction would be completed enough to open the park for spring or summer 2019.
In the time since, the park project has faced repeated delays, including a lawsuit from neighbors in spring of 2018.
Construction was then expected to begin in spring 2019, with the park planned to be opened in the coming fall, but when the town opened up the bidding process for park construction, no contractor offered a price low enough for the town’s budget. The Camp Verde Town Council voted to reject all bids and open up the bidding process again this winter, with the hope of the park opening in fall 2020.
This round of bidding had its deadline on Jan. 15, and according to Martin, the town this time got what it wanted, receiving seven bids more within the price range for construction that the town had hoped for.
“The lowest bid was about $3 million, and that’s about what we have left,” Martin said. “We’re looking to lower that one, so that we have more money to take on more issues.”
Martin plans to have the Town Council discuss the bids at a work session on Feb. 12, in order to decide how to move forward. According to Martin, though the initial bid falls within the budget expected by the town, he expects there will be discussions on what specific features to prioritize — such as landscaping, water drainage or parking — which may mean paying less to the contractor for the main park project but paying separate vendors for the other features.
“[We will] put all those on top of the bid, even revised downward on some of the scope, so that we can sit down and go, ‘Okay, maybe it’s $2.5 million that we award on that particular bid,’” Martin said. “What do we have left? Do we need to put more money into it? If so, where does that come from? What’s council’s opinion on priorities? That kind of thing. So that will all happen at the Feb. 12 work session.”
Though the decisions on these specifics will be left up to council to finalize at the work session, Martin said that town staff would recommend to the council that they accept some form of one of the bids submitted by the contractors in order to allow construction to begin soon.
“I’m confident that we’ll be constructing the project within a month or so,” Martin said. “I just don’t see why we wouldn’t, unless there’s some other delay for other reasons that council sees as necessary.”
The bids being discussed refer only to the first phase of the park, allowing it to be usable with many of its basic features and fields, with additional park features expected to come at a later date with another round of funding.
