Redevelopment Commission accepts Landmark Structures bid for Philmo Road water tower project

St. Joseph County Redevelopment Commission members opened a single bid and later approved the recommended contract for the Philmo Road water tower project on Feb. 18, 2025.

The only bid, from Landmark Structures, listed a base bid of $11,138,000, with a mandatory alternate that would deduct $565,000 if the tank size were reduced from 1.25 million gallons to 1.0 million gallons. "The total base bid from Landmark Structures is $11,138,000," said Connor Dickey, an engineer with DLC, the consulting firm that designed the project. He also confirmed the mandatory alternate is a "deduct of $565,000."

The commission first voted to accept the bids for review and then, after staff discussion, voted to approve the bid as recommended by DLC. Commissioners recorded affirmative votes during roll call.

County staff told commissioners the project was upsized from an originally planned 500,000-gallon tank to a 1.25-million-gallon tank to meet system needs. Staff said a portion of the work will be reimbursable by AWS and that county cash on hand and other county funds would be used to cover remaining costs. "There's a large amount of this that's covered by the AWS reimbursement," county staff said, and any contract overruns would come back to the commission as change orders.

The bid packet showed Landmark Structures as the sole bidder; staff said they would work out reimbursement and funding decisions as the project moves into contract and construction phases.

The commission motioned and approved both the acceptance of the bid for review and the eventual approval of the DLC-recommended contract. Commissioners were recorded voting in favor during the meeting.

Next steps described by staff include finalizing reimbursement arrangements with AWS and preparing contract change-order procedures in case of overruns.