Simpson Pavilion project set to begin

It’s far from a clean slate, but the former Mt. Bachelor park-and-ride lot will soon begin its metamorphism into the Simpson Pavilion, now that the project has been trimmed to fit the allotted funds after bids came in over that amount.

On Tuesday, the Park and Recreation Board approved a contract bid by Apollo Incorporated. The approval cements advancement of the project, and developers are promising movement before December.

“They’re going to start mobilizing as early as next week, and we’ll officially be on site at least by the week of Thanksgiving,” Bend Parks and Recreation Construction Manager Brian Hudspeth said Thursday.

But to break ground before Black Friday, project leaders had to come up with a way to bring the voter-approved recreation and winter-ice facility out of the budgetary red.

“Apollo’s original bid was for $9.3 million,” said landscape architect Jim Figurski. “We needed something closer to the $8.5 million range.”

A total of $800,000 needed to be cut if the Simpson Pavilion was going to land approval. So developers went “ground-up” on the project with Apollo to find ways to cut costs, without cutting corners.

“We went through and got a cost, then said, ‘Okay, if we ordered different materials here, what would the savings be?’ And we went through each of those,” said Michelle Healy, planning and development manager for the Bend Park and Recreation District.

“One example would be in the ceiling,” said Figurski. “What was originally specified was an off-the-shelf product, but we found that they could actually manufacture the materials for that themselves for less.”

Known as value engineering, developers and Apollo Inc. were able to bring down the budget on the pavilion by nearly $1.3 million. However, part of those cuts included moving required materials, like a Zamboni for the pavilion’s ice rink, to funds that will be drawn at a later date.

“There is no magic pot out there,” Figurski said. “If you take money from one place, it’ll come from somewhere else.,”

“It may mean other projects will get reevaluated later on,” he added.

But for now, developers are putting away the crystal ball and sharing their excitement for what’s in front of them: the beginning of a project that will turn an abandoned lot into a community pavilion, without breaking the bank.

“The start’s always the best part,” Hudspeth said.