Lisa Burch, lead engineer with YTT Engineering, gave an update on the first phase of the sports complex project. The City of Lisbon is developing a sports complex on land acquired in 2019, with the first phase building number of soccer fields.
The first phase of the complex includes land to the north of West Market Street in Lisbon, adjacent to the Meyers Meadows complex and the Nature Park in Lisbon.
With the initial projections for the project at roughly $1.6 million, there were a few items that could be omitted to keep costs down, if the city needed to save money for the project.
As is the case almost everywhere, YTT has seen bids come in much higher on costs for projects due to labor and material shortages in the construction market, Burch said.
One potential saving would be to go with a chip and seal parking lot compared to a solid concrete parking lot. That would be a roughly $30,000 savings.
The city could use a potential lift station to connect the new sewer main to a main over to the east to connect with the storm sewer and potentially use a lift station. That suggestion was one that Travis Bagby recommended against, pointing out other similar lift stations have been more costly for the City of Lisbon.
YTT plans to keep mains in the park ready to connect and serve to other neighborhoods in the community; Burch recommends keeping the mains at eight inches, as that would best serve the community in years to come.
“With this sports complex and nature park complex, this becomes a prime space for residential development that would border the park to the west,” Burch said. “Having mains that would allow those developments to tie into would be the best for this area.”
The bids for the phase 1 of the sports complex will be let in late fall and early winter, which Burch indicated may mean more competitive bids. The project would also have several alternate bids to allow the city to see what they could allow or reduce in the project to allow the sports complex to move forward.
“If we wait too long, contractors may have a full schedule and we won’t get those bids,” Burch said.
Lisbon could consider American Rescue Plan funds to help with the costs of the water and sewer portions of the project, Lisbon city administrator Brandon Siggins said.
By reducing one of the street inlets to the park complex, that could save an additional $200,000 for the project. Burch was recommending only using Jefferson Street as the road to the parking lot space as opposed to developing road extensions from Jefferson Street and Walnut Streets to the park space..
Discussion from the council went into if utilizing Jefferson Street or Third Street West would be the best access to the sports complex. Designers had not looked into utilizing Third Street West connection because of neighbors concerns about the increased amount of traffic to and from the park that would be seen along that road.
With Third Street and Washington Street intersections to be torn up for a water and sewer project this spring, it might be a time to evaluate extending the road and services further west towards the park to connect to the future park. The council recommended that connection be explored just as much as the connections to Jefferson Street and Walnut Streets were looked at in the original project for a better scope of what projects would cost less for this new park.
Lisbon city council member Travis Jubeck noted that the city should look at completing at least the trail project at the nature park complex in the next few years as well.
“That would give people something to enjoy that space of nature park with right now and increase excitement for the sports complex that is being designed,” Jubeck said.