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Council tables expanded riverfront design work after members question added fees
Summary
Councilmembers asked for a clearer breakdown of engineering versus additional design and visualization fees before approving an amendment to the design-services contract for the city-owned hydroelectric building; they tabled the amendment to the May 5 meeting.
WAVERLY, Iowa — The Waverly City Council voted Monday to table a proposed amendment to its design-services contract for investigating riverfront amenities around the historic hydroelectric building, after several council members questioned the scope and additional fees proposed by Slingshot Architecture and Bolton & Menk.
The amendment would have added investigative work upstream and downstream of the hydroelectric portion of the building, including subsurface and topographic investigation, to determine which riverfront amenities might be feasible. Staff said the effort would involve riverbed and soil borings, survey and structural engineering to define options.
Councilmember Brett (last name not provided in the transcript) and others said they were uncomfortable approving extra site-design and visualization work before completing the core geotechnical and structural study. One council member recalled an engineer's earlier estimate of about $100,000 for the water/riverbed study and questioned why the current amendment included an additional $55,000 in architectural fees.
"We need the engineering for sure," a councilmember said during debate, noting that borings and structural analysis should be completed before further design work. Another councilmember asked why the city was not contracting directly with Bolton & Menk for engineering rather than routing the work through Slingshot, and requested a clearer fee schedule and identification of reimbursable expenses.
After extended discussion, a motion to table the amendment carried; the council asked staff to return May 5 with a revised scope that separates essential engineers' work (borings, structural and environmental) from optional site design and visualization so members could decide what to approve.
Speakers
- Slingshot Architecture and Bolton & Menk were represented in the packet and discussed by staff; no individual Slingshot representative was quoted in the transcript during deliberation. - Councilmembers who spoke during the item asked for the scope and fee breakdown; staff (Administrator/engineer) said Bolton & Menk had separate 2025 hourly rates and that the additional work included environmental and traffic surveys among other tasks.
Clarifying details
- The council discussed an earlier engineer-provided ballpark of roughly $100,000 for riverbed/soil study; Bolton & Menk provided engineering fees in the packet but the council requested clearer attachments and fee breakdowns. - The amendment as presented included proposed architectural/design fees in addition to Bolton & Menk engineering costs; council members asked staff to return with what is strictly necessary for an informed decision (borings/structural) and what represents additional concept design.
Next steps
City staff will ask Slingshot and Bolton & Menk to provide a revised, itemized scope and fee schedule and will return the item to the council on May 5 for further action. The council explicitly directed staff to separate the geotechnical/structural engineering work from additional site-design and visualization tasks.
Ending
Council members said they support learning whether riverfront improvements are feasible but want engineers' findings before committing to additional architectural design work that could add tens of thousands of dollars to the project.
