Parks and Rec Committee Recommends Re-engineering of Lansdale Skatepark Project

Keith Heffintrayer•

As Lansdale continues its push for a skatepark next to Fourth Street Park, the borough's Parks and Rec Committee has recommended to Borough Council that the project be re-engineered at a cost of no more than $50,000 and rebid for a third time.

The second round of bidding ended in November, with the committee rejecting all three bids due to costs running substantially higher than anticipated. Those unanticipated overages were blamed on all three bids coming from the West Coast. As a counter to the issue, as well as a means to involve local companies in the process, the committee decided to break the proposed third round of bidding into three separate parts, instead of searching for a singular contractor to perform all of the work.

"What’s happened here isn’t all that unique,” said Chris Kunkel, Lansdale Borough Community Development Manager, during Wednesday night’s Parks and Rec Committee meeting. "We had a design prepared and it went out to bid, and the bid costs came back wildly higher than we had planned for on every single line item.”

The three-part bid would include the borough performing much of initial site-work preparation, including stormwater management and piping. Then the second part—the construction of the skatepark—and the third part—landscaping—would be put out to separate bids. The skatepark design itself would be left unchanged, though Kunkel stated that they had eliminated a serpentine retaining wall from the landscaping plan due to its price tag.

In total, Kunkel said the overall cost of the project is now projected to be roughly $700,000, of which $220,000 will be funded by grant money and another $220,000 in matching funds from the Lansdale Parking Authority. That leaves the borough on the hook for roughly $260,000.

Kunkel added that the initial capital plan for the project had the borough responsible for $350,000 in funding, meaning even with the upcoming rebid, the project itself is expected to come in $100,000 below the initial anticipated budget.

To help offset the cost of re-engineering the project, the committee discussed possible fundraising options, but the borough is prohibited from directly fundraising or asking for funds. Instead, they hope that others may follow in the footsteps of WB Homes, who donated $1,000 to the project without solicitation.

Failing to complete the project—the grant money expires in December—could also prove woesome for the borough, as it could inhibit its ability to secure future grants.

"If the project is not completed, it’s likely that you’ll be denied grants down the road for a while,” said Mary Fuller, chair of the Parks and Rec committee.

"I know municipalities that have gotten into that problem, and they don’t get grant funding,” added Kunkel. "When you look at the net cost to the borough, it’s very reasonable for what we’re getting out of it.”

Borough Council will likely vote at the business meeting on Feb. 20 on contracting with consulting firm Remington & Vernick Engineers to revisit the project. Considering the re-engineering and rebidding, Kunkel said the skatepark's timeline would shift to a probable opening sometime in 2020.