Aberdeen City Council allows $462,584 proposal for new city hall elevator

By Matthew N. Wells • July 25, 2024 4:00 pm
Matthew N. Wells / The Daily World Aberdeen City Hall’s elevator, “one of the oldest” of its type, broke on May 1. Ever since, the city has moved its public meetings — first they were over to the Aberdeen Rotary Log Pavilion, but then they were moved to Grays Harbor College’s tulalW Student Center. The center is also known as the 3000 building.
Matthew N. Wells / The Daily World Aberdeen City Hall’s elevator, “one of the oldest” of its type, broke on May 1. Ever since, the city has moved its public meetings — first they were over to the Aberdeen Rotary Log Pavilion, but then they were moved to Grays Harbor College’s tulalW Student Center. The center is also known as the 3000 building.

The Aberdeen City Hall moved its city council and other public meetings to Grays Harbor College in May because of a failed elevator.

People have been wondering ever since then, with meetings at the Aberdeen Rotary Log Pavilion and then Grays Harbor College, when the elevator will be fixed or replaced. The city has been working to find a way to replace the elevator with no longer working electrical components ever since it broke for the last time on May 1.

Back in May, Ruth Clemens, Aberdeen’s city administrator, said the elevator is “one of the oldest elevators of its type.” She said the city was, at that point, receiving bids for its replacement. But then the elevator “died.” The elevator was estimated to be out for several months. It’s been almost three months since then.

According to Rick Sangder, Aberdeen’s director of public works, he addressed the ongoing issues with the elevator well before the elevator broke in May. He said the city has tried to get the elevator replaced for a long time.

“I have put it in as a budgetary request multiple times over the last eight years and it was removed,” Sangder said.

Well, it appears the city is clearing up any confusion the city’s private residents have about about the elevator not getting fixed through the past two months, because the city council on Wednesday night approved Aberdeen Mayor Doug Orr to sign a proposal to replace it.

The proposal, from KONE Elevators and Escalators of USA, includes a cost of $462,584 to “replace and modernize the City Hall elevator.”

While there wasn’t much discussion on the item, Councilor Stan Sidor shared his skepticism about spending $462,584 and seemed to think a new elevator could be acquired for less.

“I apologize to the council, before tonight I was gonna actually look up elevator costs in a costs manual I have reference to and I didn’t get around to it,” Sidor said. “I’ve worked on a number of properties where elevators have had to be replaced … and this cost, I pointed this out before, it just seems like somebody’s taking the city for a ride, in my opinion. Maybe it’s really gonna cost $463,000 (but) that seems like an awful lot of money to replace the elevator. I hope we got at least three bids, but I’ll leave it to Mr. Sangder to support that.”

But Sangder said the city needs a total replacement.

“Nothing is salvageable,” Sangder said about the current, broken elevator. “It is all garbage.”

As for where the money comes from, Sangder said the city has “$200k in the budget this year and I believe the intent is to use REET funds if possible.” REET is an acronym for real estate excise tax.

Sangder said when he first asked for funding that his request for for “approximately $200,000”

Bids

According to Sangder, the city is using a “bidding cooperative.”

“It is an approved process somewhat like the state bid process where the cooperative agency writes a spec and advertises the project and any agency that belongs to the cooperative can piggyback on the bid,” Sangder said.

Sangder answered what he thinks the odds are the elevator’s cost is one to depend on.

“I think $462k is realistic as we are piggybacking off an existing contract that the cooperative put together for 2024,” Sangder said.

As for how long it could be before the city hall has an elevator, and then when city council meetings can return to the council chambers on the building’s third floor, Sangder didn’t have a concrete answer for that.

“That is really hard to say, we will be working with the contractor to nail that down as soon as we have a contract in place,” Sangder said. “I am concerned due to the electrical components that are required and have been extremely long lead items on other projects.”

Contact Reporter Matthew N. Wells at matthew.wells@thedailyworld.com.