COLUMBUS, Ind. — Columbus is extending an agreement and increasing the contract amount for a local company’s work on the FairOaks Mall project.
The Columbus Board of Works has approved amending the city’s contract with Taylor Brothers Construction Co. City director of finance, operations and risk Jamie Brinegar said that the city signed an agreement in 2019 for the company “to assist us as we were working through the FairOaks Mall project.” The contract’s original not-to-exceed amount was $10,000.
“That’s carried us through to this point,” he said. “However, as we move to the next stage of the project, we would like to extend our agreement with Taylor Brothers. And this is to cover engineering, test fit, review of services and others, as described in the original agreement. And we would like to change the amount from not-to-exceed $10,000 to not-to-exceed $50,000.”
Brinegar said that Taylor Bros. has been paid “approximately between $5,000-$7,000 to date through 2020.”
He also said that David Doup of Taylor Brothers is working with the city and participates in about three meetings each week that are at least an hour long. He added that Doup has been very helpful and is also working outside of these meetings and reviewing documents, such as those on engineering and test fit.
In 2018, the city of Columbus and Columbus Regional Health, with some help from the Heritage Fund, purchased the 35.36-acre FairOaks Mall property at 25th Street and Central Avenue.
“Our plan, now as then, is to construct on the site an indoor athletic facility and reconfigure the mall to eventually replace Donner Center,” said Mayor Jim Lienhoop in his 2021 State of the City address. He said that the city plans to move forward with at least the “indoor complex” portion of the project in 2021.
“For the second half of 2020, we put the project on hold as we were dealing with the pandemic,” Brinegar said. “But as we gear up in 2021 and are doing more things, we expect a lot more.”
