High Bids Cause New Downtown St. Cloud Parking Ramp to be Scaled Back

ST. CLOUD - Construction of the new parking ramp in downtown St. Cloud has hit a road block. The four bids the city received from the contractors are all well over budget. The city has $11.56 million in state bonding money to spending on the project. However, the lowest of the four bids nearly $17.4 million.

The city council will reject the four bids during their meeting on Monday night. Then, Mayor Dave Kleis says they'll try to work with the lowest bidders to scale back the project.

If we don't go underground and went at surface and up we can shave off a significant amount of dollars right there. Just looking at it we're comfortable that we can make some changes.

Kleis says they'll still want the parking ramp to go over 5th Avenue, and they'll want to keep the same number of stalls, with a walkway connecting the ramp to the convention center.

Kleis says they won't have to start the bidding process over, if they can figure out a way to scale back the project without changing the overall design.

So that you still have the same amount of stalls, basically you have a similar size. It might not have to go higher, it might go out farther and closer to the existing building to make up those stalls you wouldn't have underground. Just need to make adjustments to the design that doesn't change the overall scope of the project.

This also means hopes of expanding the River's Edge Convention Center out to 5th Avenue will have to be scrapped.

Meanwhile, Kleis says while they try to work out the design changes to the parking ramp, they will reopen 5th Avenue to traffic in about a week.