Architect's rendering of proposed town hall building

A new Shepherdstown Town Hall is one step closer to being realized after fourteen construction companies submitted bids to Town Hall by the deadline at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, July 6. Next Tuesday, July 13, city officials plan to meet with representatives from the companies with the lowest bids to discuss the project and the details of their construction plans.

About $386,800 separated the high bid, from the low bid, with 14 construction companies submitting bids. Callas Contractors submitted the lowest bid, with a projected cost of only $857,000. Caldwell-Santmyer construction submitted the highest bid, coming in at $1,243,800. A fifteenth company, Building Systems Incorporated, submitted a bid one hour after deadline. Their bid was read aloud for the benefit of the assembled but was rejected. The Town Council has budgeted roughly $1 million for the project.

Three companies had bids under $950,000, Lantz Construction, Minghini General Contractors, and Callas.

Andy Singletary, the architect and project manager for the new town hall, read aloud the bid amounts one by one before a small crowd of nine representatives of the bidding companies. Also present at the meeting was John Brady, a local resident under contract to supervise the construction phase of the project.

Singleterry said that he was encouraged to see what he described as the small range of variation in the bid amounts. “They were right around what we expected,” he remarked during the meeting.

Next Tuesday will see a handful of the low bidders invited back to the Town Hall for interviews to determine if their bids are accurate and if their companies can deliver what they’ve promised. Mayor Auxer is expected to participate in these interviews, along with Singletary and Brady. After the interviews are concluded, they will make a recommendation to the Town Council for approval.

Town Clerk Amy Boyd, who was also present at the unsealing of the bids, said that she does not expect the matter will come before the Town Council until next month. She said that while the agenda for next week’s Town Council meeting calls for a vote to award a bid, she doubts that Singletary, Brady and the Mayor will have made a recommendation by that point.