UP City Council OKs Contract of Sale For Property At Preston and Lovers

July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 Rachel Snyder 0 Comments

The University Park City Council this week approved the contract of sale for the property at 4084 Lovers Lane that Bill Shaddock donated to the city for use as a new park. While the city approved the sale contract, the closing will not be scheduled until final acceptance of the park is completed.

Shaddock acquired the property in December of 2019 with the intent of donating it to the city once a park was constructed on it.

Under the terms of the letter of understanding approved in April with Shaddock, the city agreed to purchase the property for $500,000 following the completion of construction of the park. If construction costs exceed $500,000, the city and Shaddock will split the additional cost above $500,000 50/50.

However, Shaddock agreed to limit the city’s cost exposure on the project to an overall maximum amount of $775,000. Therefore, the maximum price the city will pay for the property is $637,500.

“Right now, if you drive past this property, you’ll notice there’s quite a bit of construction activity on there, the permits have been approved, Mr. Shaddock is moving forward with his contractor to have that property developed into a park,” City Manager Robbie Corder said. “Once we’re satisfied with the final completion of that project, we will schedule the closing date and establish what the final cost of this project is…the donation piece comes in through the donation of the approximate $900,000 purchase of the property. So the city is not paying for the initial purchase of the property, but we are paying for, essentially, the construction of the park.”

In other news, the council:

Approved a proposal to create a new utility construction division within the city’s Public Works Department to perform the mile per year projects, which include water and sewer replacement throughout town. The estimated annual costs of bringing the mile per year program in house are reportedly $3,736,000 and the estimated annual costs of contracting for the mile per year program are $4,214,000. “We would start with one crew, that’s six employees, so we’re the superintendent plus a crew of six and a total of seven, and that one crew, I propose that we’d have them go to work and let’s evaluate the effectiveness of this new, dedicated crew with the new job descriptions and the new salary structure and let’s evaluate that for a year, year and a half. If it’s successful, great, we’ll expand, we’ll hire the three additional crews needed to complete the division and be able to complete a mile’s worth of utility work in a year. If it’s unsuccessful, we can eliminate the division and resume contracting for the utility replacement,” University Park Public Works Director Jacob Speer said.

Approved final payment to John Burns Construction for $140,639.79 for replacement of water and sanitary sewer mains and pavement in six alleys on the west side of town. “This represents completion of a project originally at a little over $3.9 million with (a) change order to reduce the scope, the final amount paid to John Burns will be $3,582,295.86,” Speer said.