On March 3, 2011, City of Norfolk administrators opened bids along with the engineering firm DLR Group of Omaha for a football and soccer synthetic turf field for the Veterans Memorial Park. The project is described in more detail in an earlier post.

The bidders were required to provide two separate bids, one for completion in late August 2011 and another for completion in August 2012. The earlier bid allows for a 30 day installation period following a one week inspection of the sub-grade. The second bid allows for a 60 day installation window. According to the Norfolk Daily News, March 4, 2011, City/Region section, page 15, there were 34 bids to be evaluated using a matrix of performance characteristics. Bidders could offer multiple turf technology solutions.

Bids ranged from $306,750 to $377,000 for a 2011 completion and $315,120 to $422,000 for a 2012 completion.

The final award will not be announced until after there has been a review of the overall general contract effort (parking lots, seating, consolidated bath house, locker rooms, rest rooms, and concession stand) and matching the costs relative to the two different installation options. The 2011 installation allows for a period of less than 90 days to get the sub-grade prepared to include aggregate(s) application, packing, laser grading, drainage, and curbing as well as other efforts surrounding the field of play.

A vendor selection recommendation will be presented to the City Council members at a meeting on March 28th.

As a side note, I spoke with a local concrete and paving firm and the owner stated that his firm and three other local firms reviewed the general contracted effort. After evaluation and considering the project as a local team effort they determined that the "local team" could not complete the parking lot paving requirements in the time allowed in the contract schedule.

http://trumark.blogspot.com/2011/02/mult-use-synthetic-turf-field-specified.html

On March 28, 2011, Norfolk City Council selected the Sprintturf solution for the football and soccer field complex. You can read the Norfolk Daily News account of the meeting and more about how this product selection, although not the lowest submitted bid. Now the general contractor which was also selected at the same meeting has about 90 days to prepare the base, the concrete border, and drainaged for the Sprintturf installation which is scheduled for a 30 day period.