CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The contract for a portion of the Kanawha County Judicial Building renovation project has been awarded.
The Kanawha County Commission approved the award for the 5th floor project to the low bidder, Grae-Con Construction Inc., Friday evening. The bid amount was $2,011,456.
The projects will look to renovate the building and add space three magistrates and a circuit judge, which came in at the start of the year. The original plan was to do one, large renovation project with three phases, but when the low bid came in $3 million more than what the commission expected, the commission and its team or architects decided to break up the work and send it to a re-bid.
Ben Salango
Kanawha County Commission President Ben Salango was pleased with the numbers.
“It was about $350,000 under our projection,” Salango said. “It was good to break it up and put it back out to bid. That way there would be more competition.”
According to the commission’s team of architects, Silling Architects, there were five bids for the 5th floor renovation project. There were just two bids for the original project in 2024. Part of the reason just two companies put in bids for the original project was that some of the work would be done during nighttime hours.
Commissioner Natalie Tennant says the time of day the work is done was a big deal.
Natalie Tennant
“The ability to work in the daytime lowered some of the bids,” Tennant said.
Salango also says the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which has given funds to local and state governments for COVID-19 relief since 2021, has also played a factor.
“The other thing we’re seeing is some of that federal ARPA money is drying up, so we’re seeing people more interested in bidding on regular projects,” Salango said, That has been a problem over the last couple of years because they could just pick and choose on what they bid on.”