Dieterich Village Board Awards Wright Family Center Bid, With Conditions

Dieterich Village Board members Monday voted to award the bid for construction of the Wright Family Center.

The vote to award the bid to AKRA Builders came with conditions. The chief consideration is obtaining a waiver for the Illinois Works Apprenticeship Institute requirement that at least 10% of the workforce on the project be in the apprenticeship program. The apprenticeship requirement is a consideration to receive state grant funds to cover much of the project cost.

Dieterich Village Clerk Brittny Gipson said apprentices can't be found to fulfill the requirement. Work is underway to obtain the waiver from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Construction on the project won't begin until word is received on the waiver.

In the meantime, work continues on value engineering to reduce the project cost. AKRA's bid came in at $5,072,889. The project originally was expected to come in at around $3,000,000. 

Gipson said 72 items have already been identified on the project that could reduce the cost by up to $900,000, but those are still being evaluated.

Also Monday, the Dieterich board hired Effingham Striping to stripe the parking lot at the new Village Hall, and purchased parking blocks for the lot. Any claim by the Village on a lot in Hartke Subdivision has been released as the house on that lot has been completed.

There was discussion of changes to the village liquor ordinance to bring it up to date, and discussion of signage for the Industrial Park East along Illinois Route 33.