Bids for Barton Community College’s future Agriculture, Farm Machinery and Transportation Complex were opened Feb. 1 and may be approved when the BCC Board of Trustees meets on Tuesday, Feb. 14. Harbin Construction in Salina submitted the low bid.

College trustees will have a study session at 4 p.m. Tuesday in Room F-30 of the Fine Arts Building. That will be followed by a special board meeting in which formal action can be taken, including approving the bid.

According to information from the college, two bids were submitted for this project. The other bid came from Hutton Construction, based in Wichita.

The college was awarded an ARPA Grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce. The amount of the matching grant was $1,843,594. The Barton Community College Foundation has been working to raise the matching funds for the project and currently has approximately $561,200 from private donations to apply to the match.

Federal regulations for the grant require the acceptance of the low bid. Board documents show Harbin’s total bid was $3,214,150 and Hutton’s was $3,374,000. Since the project was actually started a few years ago (in concept), architectural work has already occurred based on the original design and requests. Architectural and engineer fees are not included in the above bids.

Subcontractors listed in the Harbin bid include Hammeke Electric, ComfortPro, Esfeld Construction, Jimlo Glass, C&E Doors and Joiner Construction, all in Great Bend; Devine Masonry in Larned; and Alliance (no address shown) as the metal building manufacturer.

Meeting agendas

Items on agenda for the 4 p.m. board study session include information on dual credit cooperative agreements, the January financial statement and presentations on federal TRIO programs at Barton.

The special meeting agenda includes an executive session in compliance with the Kansas Open Meetings Act, followed by action on the Ag Complex bids.