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When Grant County Civic Center Director Mari Honstead approached Grant County Commission February 4, regarding the floor in the South Room of the Civic Center, she said it was time for a replacement after more than a decade since the last time the heavily used floor had been replaced. At the time, Commission Chairman John Martin said he wanted to see two bids.
Honstead presented the commission with four bids at their meeting February 18, but that wasn’t enough for the commissioners to decide. The bids ranged from J&M Paint and Decorating Center in Garden City, for $29,841.89 to $46,182.98 from L&L Floor Covering in Garden City. Mobius Flooring and Construction of Ulysses submitted a bid of $40,338.20 and Myles Guadian of Floor Covering Specialists in Garden City submitted a bid of $30,084.55.
Guadian is a friend of commission chairman John Martin and used to work for L&L Floor Covering.
“He’s a perfectionist and he’s a straight shooter and there’s no hidden things that come up that he don’t discuss with you,” Martin said.
“He was very honest and so was L&L,” Honstead said, adding that L&L’s bid was different because they would leave the current vinyl tile, sand it smooth and put a bonding agent on the floor and a thin coat of finisher. “He said it would look like a brand-new cement floor and then they would lay the tile on top of that.”
Honstead said she was told that would extend the life of the floor, but it was permanent and would not easily be removed.
After a long discussion, the commission decided to table the item.
The process isn’t as simple as picking the lowest bid and moving on. There are differences in what each bidder offers, and the techniques applied to the work and what will best work in the 5,000 square foot heavily used South Room.
Honstead said three of the bids were for vinyl composite tile and one for epoxy flake. Honstead was concerned about the bid from J&M because it was so low.
“They put over in red it is an estimate only and their bid wasn’t figured right, they left out the freight in the total,” Honstead said. “I don’t know, I think they’re low-balling that pretty hard because I know what that floor looks like underneath and it’s gonna need some work.
“Those floors take a lot of abuse.”
Honstead said the floor from L&L, while nice, would not work well in the South Room. Martin said his gut told him if Guadian thought there was value in the additional step that L&L proposed, he would also recommend it. Honstead said she had no preference either way, but commissioner Mark McGaughey said Guadian would be tearing out the old tile.
“It’s not that I have a preference of one or the other, that just makes me very uneasy, tearing it out, because I’ve seen what’s underneath, it’s rough, it’s got old adhesive down, it’s got sticky adhesive down. It’s just a mess under there.”
Honstead said she thought that, in the long run, they would be better off with L&L’s proposal.
“I just think leaving that extra layer in between the moisture and the stuff … couldn’t hurt,” Honstead said, adding she budgeted $50,000, so all of the bids came in under budget.
But John Martin was in favor of the bid from Myles Guadian.
“It looks to me like Myles’s bid is probably the bang for the buck,” Martin said, asking Honstead if that's what she also was thinking.
“No, I don’t,” Honstead responded.
“OK, what are you thinking?” Martin asked.
Guadian’s bid includes $1,305 for preparing the floor.
“I think $1,300 is very low-ball on prepping it,” Honstead said, adding the L&L proposal is a 20-year floor vs. a 10-year floor for the three other bids. “In 10 years, you’re going to be doing this again.”
Commissioner Darren Figgins asked if any of the bidders provided a time frame to complete the work, and Honstead said Guadian said he could “Probably have it done by the fair.” L&L said “Four weeks out and two weeks down.” Honstead added she would try to schedule the floor work around events at the civic center.
“So, I think what we’re getting from you, if you had to pick one, you think the bid from L&L gets what you want,” Figgins said.
“I do,” Honstead said. “But I’m not looking at it from your side of the table, and I get that. I just think you’re getting double, timewise, if what he says is true.”
Martin agreed if the L&L Proposal followed through, it would be money well-spent, but “I just have a little problem believing that we’re gonna get ‘that’ much time (20 years) out of them,” Martin said. “It might extend it, you know, even double it. I would think that’d be more realistic than going 30 years, with our expectations.”
Honstead said she was thinking 20 years vs. 10.
But Martin had trouble with spending an extra $16,000 for that flooring and doesn’t believe the L&L proposal would extend the life of the floor as long as Honstead believes.
“I’ll respectfully take whatever you guys decide,” Honstead said. “But that’s my recommendation. I want to leave it in good shape; I know we’ll be redoing it in 10 years if we go the other way. I know for a fact.”
Martin said the commission didn’t need to decide that day and McGaughey said to table it.
•Decisions the commission did make regarding the civic center was the purchase of a dump trailer for $9,500 from Trailer Solutions of Garden City and the purchase of a copier from Southern Office Supply in Liberal for $7,950.
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