On Monday the County Commissioners received an update from grant administrator, Shannon McLeod from Priority Project Resources on a Stellar Project.
She told the commissioners they advertised for bids for the owner-occupied housing rehabilitation projects and Monday was the date to open bids.
No bids were submitted, and McLeod said, “This has been a tad bit of a challenging project. We started this project 3 years ago and when COVID hit we had to sidetrack it because you had to enter the people’s homes and we couldn’t do that. Once it opened back up there were material shortages, labor shortages, and contractors in high demand.”
In 2022 we advertised to create a bidders list where individual contractors or companies could submit their statement of qualifications and we could then select them from their quotes once the projects were ready. McLeod said there were no responses.
The decision was made to open it up to public bidding and a pre-bid meeting was scheduled a few weeks ago with no results.
McLeod said contractors have indicated some interest although some she’s spoken with say they are busy and looking for bigger more profitable projects.
The grant administrator said she plans to create the bidder’s list again and then solicit and motivate construction people to submit. She said, “The problem is these projects are small in nature. We are talking $25,000 or less. I’ve told them they can submit a bid on one project or all 12 but I just can’t seem to get them motivated.”
In discussing the various projects, McLeod said one home needs to total rewiring job because it has knob and tube wiring, two homes need ADA bathroom improvements and most of the projects are roofs or heating and cooling systems. She said, “I need plumbers, electricians, general contractors, and roofers.”
Any contractor interested in getting more information on these projects in Marshall County can contact Shannon McLeod at Priority Project Resources at 812-663-7385 or email her at shannon@pprgrant.com
