Sunbury approves Simonson contract to expand wastewater plant; council accepts base bid and one alternate

Sunbury City Council on Jan. 29 approved awarding the construction contract for the city’s wastewater treatment plant expansion to Simonson Construction and approved associated professional services agreements, following staff recommendations to accept the base bid and one alternate for improvements to the operations building.

City Administrator Jake Hennessy, who presented the staff memo and recommendation, told council the project will increase the plant’s capacity from about 1,125,000 gallons per day to 2,000,000 gallons per day. “Ours is a $30,000,000 project,” Hennessy said during the presentation. He recommended council approve the base bid and one alternate (the operations building improvements) and decline a second alternate for an expanded sludge storage facility so staff can seek other options for that work.

The council voted on a series of related items at the meeting. Earlier the body approved a resolution to retain CT Consultants for engineering services related to the expansion; council later approved a resolution authorizing construction inspection services with Anser Advisory LLC. On final action, council adopted Ordinance 2025-O-9 to award the construction contract to Simonson after suspending rules and declaring an emergency; votes on those motions were recorded as unanimous 7-0.

Hennessy described the procurement history: design work began more than five years ago; the project was collapsed into a single-phase effort after city staff concluded accelerating demand made a single large project more efficient. The city conducted two bid cycles. The first returned a bid more than 60% above the engineer’s estimate and was not accepted under the Ohio Revised Code threshold Hennessy cited for unacceptable overage; a second public bid process produced competing proposals from Kirk Brothers and Simonson. Staff and CT Consultants performed due diligence, held a pre-award meeting with Simonson and contacted references and additional projects to confirm the company’s experience.

City staff listed the project components in the memo: installation of blowers; transfer pumps; a UV disinfection system; chemical feed processes; upgraded electrical controls and SCADA; lift station generators; a sludge drying belt press; secondary clarifiers; tertiary filters; aerobic digesters; and an expanded operations building. Hennessy said staff recommended not accepting the alternate for the sludge storage facility at this time and that the city expects a construction schedule of roughly two and a half years.

In explaining the recommendation, Hennessy and the packet materials noted Simonson had multiple utility-related projects in its bid records and a recent, large non-utility project (a $72 million school campus) that demonstrated capacity to manage a complex, multiyear contract. Staff asked council to authorize an award within the dollar limit shown in the council packet; the precise “not to exceed” figure stated in the meeting packet was unclear on the public transcript and is recorded in the packet materials provided to council.

Council members asked few substantive follow-up questions during the recorded discussion. Mayor Gary St. John and council members voted in favor of suspending the rules and adopting the ordinance; roll-call votes were recorded as 7 ayes, motion passes. Hennessy noted the bid hold window required action at the Jan. 29 meeting to keep the apparent low bidder’s price valid for the city.

The work will be monitored by the city’s construction inspector (if council approves the Anser Advisory agreement) and CT Consultants as the design engineer. Hennessy said the inspection firm would serve as the owner’s representative on-site during construction to verify that the work meets design standards, assist with disputes that may arise between contract documents and field conditions, and prepare closeout documents and as-builts.

Council action on the construction contract and associated services means the city will move from the procurement phase into preconstruction coordination and, shortly thereafter, construction mobilization. Staff noted that the project discharges treated effluent to Prairie Run, which feeds the Big Walnut Creek system, and documented the city’s past upgrades (commissioned 1967; upgrades in 1985 and 2005).

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