Bids for new Viroqua Fire Station come in $450,000 lower than expected

VIROQUA, Wis. – Bids for construction of Viroqua’s new fire station were presented at the public safety committee meeting on Tuesday, April 23, and they were much better than had been projected by the designers. Viroqua Fire Chief Chad Buros said bidding for the project was very competitive with well over 50 bids being submitted. Those bids are technically subcontractors since the project is a design-build project and the designer (Keller Inc.) is also managing construction of the project.

The new station will be built on city owned property just north of the Wild West Days grounds and just across Nelson Parkway from the Viroqua Police Station. You can read our previous stories about the city deliberations on the new station here.

As the table below shows the projected cost of the project on March 26 was 9,904,925 and the cost of the project once all the bids were opened is $9,456,490 or $448,435 lower than estimated.

Financing for the project comes from a mix of sources which helps offset the impact to the local tax levy. The city received a $5.25 million grant from Senator Tammy Baldwins office through the Congressionally Directed Spending process. The three townships that are also served by the station (Jefferson, Franklin, and town of Viroqua) have all agreed to contribute $300,000 each to the project. That brings the city’s portion of the funding to about $3.3 million.

The city will borrow that $3.3 million for its portion of the project. With the costs associated with the borrowing the city will bond for $3.4 million. The chart below shows that at 4.2 percent interest the city will see an annual payment of almost $258,000 a year for 20 years. That borrowing has not been finalized yet but will take place in May now that the actual bids have been received. if the city gets a better interest rate on those bonds that could lower the cost of the project even more. As it stand right now the impact to taxpayers will be 75 cents fro every $1,000 of property value. As an example, someone with a $250,000 home will an increase in property tax of $187 a year or about $16 a month.