The Columbus Board of Public Works and Safety on Tuesday voted to approve the mutual release of a Columbus-based company from a contract with the city for work on an apartment complex for seniors.
The board also approved a sub-recipient agreement addendum to give the city the ability to select another contractor to finish boiler work and add $26,000 in funds to the project at Town and Garden Apartments.
The city had contracted DLD Mechanical, LLC to upgrade heating systems and install walk-in showers at the apartments located on Pearl Street reserved for low- to moderate-income seniors.
In late 2022, the city provided $53,000 of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to the Southern Indiana Housing & Community Development Corporation (SIHCDC), which owns the apartments, for the work.
The project was supposed to be done in July of last year, Director of Community Development Robin Hilber told the board.
“This actually gives the mayor the authorization to sign both a release with our current contractor and then also to sign a sub-recipient agreement addendum number one that will allow us to then hire a new contractor to complete the work that isn’t done,” according to Hilber.
Administrative Resources association (ARa) Executive Director Tobi Herron said of DLD and the boiler installation that “I think that they were not interested in it. I also think maybe they just didn’t fully understand the scope of the work.”
Herron said renovation work on the bathooms are pretty much complete and that DLD has agreed to warranty the work they’ve done so far, adding that the boiler installion “is really a huge chunk of work” that happens every “20 to 30 years.”
The incremental funding was requested “because what was originally baked into it just really didn’t make sense for the project,” Herron said.
Hilber said the additional funding will also come from a CDBG grant.
