Mar 5, 2015 3 min read

The Main Street Farmers Market won’t be raising the roof on its pavilion any time soon after bids for the project came in significantly higher than the anticipated $850,000 budget.

The bid opening Thursday afternoon at the Washington County Redevelopment Authority for all five phases of the project put the total cost at more than $1.173 million and will likely force the organization to re-evaluate the design and possibly rebid the open-air shelter.

“We’ve got a little bit more of a job than the Farmers Market was expecting,” project manager Susan Morgan said after opening the bids.

Morgan said the Redevelopment Authority, which is overseeing the project because so many nonprofits are involved, is expected to move forward with the first three portions of the bid that include building handicap-accessible restrooms, an office and storage space, ramps and stairs to connect the two parking lots and pouring the shelter’s concrete footers. That work alone is expected to cost $458,000.

However, the cost of the double-arch shelter came in well above the architect’s expectations with the lowest bid of $684,400 produced by Waller Corp. of Canton Township. The fundraising, which recently reached about $900,000, will have to continue and the 15,000-square-foot pavilion might have to be scaled back, Morgan said.

“Unless someone swoops in with $300,000,” Morgan said. “So, yes, it’s back to the drawing board. It’s unfortunate.”

The news was surprising and disappointing for Washington City Councilman Joe Manning, who is also a member of the Whiskey Rebellion Festival committee that has also been pushing the project along South Main Street.

“Well, I didn’t see that coming,” Manning said. “For all the hard work that’s been done to get it to this point and for it to come so far out of whack from what the projections were, it’s very disappointing. I know this committee and they’ll keep pushing forward.”

The sloping pavilion was originally proposed by the Farmers Market board in 2011 and received $250,000 in Local Share Account grants in previous years. It’s taken four year of design plans and fundraising, which ramped up over the past year after languishing, to reach the bidding stage.

Both Manning and Morgan thought this would allow the project to begin immediately with the shelter rising in the fall. Construction on the first three phases could still begin soon, but there is now no timeline on when the actual pavilion might be built.

“They’ll keep plugging away and get the job done,” Manning said. “It’s my hope they can go back, pare it down and get it done. It’s not going to be easy.”

Suzanne Ewing, president of the farmers market, called the bidding process an “exact science,” but said the first phase of project will still begin on time this spring.

“To deal with this, we asked the project architect to design the pavilion project in two stand alone phases, which will allow us to start and complete the first phase this spring, and complete fundraising for the second phase and raise the roof structure after the market season,” Ewing said. “We are very excited to break ground on the project this spring, and the completion of the first phase will have a significant positive impact on the Farmers Market’s 12th season.”