Cost of employee storm shelter underestimated

The building at Broderick Park would be renovated to become hurricane-proof, so it could house an emergency recovery team and families.

By ANNE LINDBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 10, 2000

PINELLAS PARK -- City staff members are prepared to recommend that the City Council award a bid to renovate Broderick Park even though the lowest bid is a half-million dollars more than the budget.

Much of the increased cost comes from city officials' desire to have a park building that can withstand severe hurricanes. Officials want to use the building, 6755 62nd St. N, as an emergency shelter for employees and their families.

Council members are scheduled to vote on the issue at Thursday's meeting. It will be at 7:30 p.m. in the City Hall, 5141 78th Ave. N.

The idea behind the shelter is to make sure those employees necessary to clean up after any disaster will be nearby and won't have to worry about evacuating their families, City Manager Jerry Mudd said.

That's one lesson Mudd said he learned after visiting Homestead to help clean up after Hurricane Andrew. Many city and county employees just never came back after getting their families out, he said. That made recovery especially difficult.

"We really do think there's merit in having shelter for the recovery team. If we can't give them shelter, they're not going to stay," Mudd said. "If we didn't provide a shelter for the recovery team, they would go away, and how would we get them back?"

Mudd added, "If I didn't work for the city, the last place I'd want my family to be is here" if a hurricane hits. "If I was just looking out for employees, I'd say, "Get out of town. Take your families and go.' "

But because the city is asking them to stay, "you'd better be in a position to protect them," he said.

It is not only the hurricane standards that caused the bids to be so high. City officials and the architects they hired underestimated the cost. They thought it would cost about $1.9-million for items that include a 10,000-square-foot recreation center with rooms for games, exercise equipment and arts and crafts activities. Other additions include tennis, basketball and sand volleyball courts.

For all that, the lowest bid was about $2.5-million. That does not include $48,120 to light the jogging trail. Nor does it include $26,480 to buy fire-rated glass required by city code to protect people escaping through corridors and in the classrooms.

Overall, Mudd said, the Broderick Park renovation should be done because it's an important project for the community.

"We had a bad estimate," he said. "It's going to cost what it's going to cost."

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