By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Bids for Justice Building furniture and the parking lot exterior lighting were awarded Monday, May 6, at the Kosciusko County Commissioners meeting, but with a caveat for the furniture bid.

The commissioners want to see the furniture first.

The bids had been opened April 23 but taken under advisement for review.

County Administrator Marsha McSherry told the commissioners Monday they went through the bid process, had a pre-bid meeting and received three furniture bids for circuit, superior and juvenile court rooms, all the jury rooms in the north part of the building, side chairs and lobby furnishings.

Office Interiors’ bid was $158,804.99; Business Furnishings, $209,917.46; and KDA’s bid was $291,060.76.

McSherry said she submitted the bids to Design Collaborative for review and their recommendation was the county couldn’t go wrong with either KDA or Office Interiors because Design Collaborative has worked with both of them.

Office Interiors had the lowest bid.

Commissioner Brad Jackson said he and McSherry had talked about it at length and he made a motion to go with Office Interiors at $158,804.99 “subject to actually seeing the physical furniture, not just a sample, but actually pieces of the furniture so we can look it over and make sure it’s something we’re comfortable with.”

The motion was approved 3-0.

McSherry then presented the Justice Building parking lot electrical bids.

“We pulled this out of the original bid for the parking lot reconfiguration at the Justice Building. We received two bids,” she said.

Those bids also were opened April 23 and included a base bid of $144,553 from D & D Electric and a base bid of $169,000 from Michiana Contracting Inc.

McSherry recommended the commissioners go with D & D Electric, which they approved unanimously.

She then presented an emergency repair on a chiller on the Justice Building roof. She said she talked with the commissioners last week about it for emergency approval, with the commissioners’ vote at their meeting Monday ratifying the proposal.

Core Mechanical’s bid was $20,384. The repair will be completed in approximately a week.

The commissioners approved the emergency repair 3-0.

Next, McSherry presented a proposal from Architectural Glass and Aluminum.

“During the renovation project of the Justice Building, we found that there were three windows — two of them with extensive leaking — and we would like to replace all three,” she said.

The quote is for $18,600 for the three windows, which covers installation.

A different vendor was $300 more, and going with a different type of window would have been considerably more than the original bid of $18,600. McSherry recommended the commissioners approve the bid, which they did.

Her last item to the commissioners was an update on the Justice Building renovation project.

“We are in the middle of phase 2, which encompasses the Superior Court, juvenile courtroom, the lobby, hallways and their offices and the jury room,” she said. “We are moving along quite well on that part of the project. They’re doing all the wallpaper. The flooring is done in all the areas. They started wallpapering on Friday morning of last week, so give us a week and that should be done.”

Phase 3 of the project is due to start after the first of June with the furniture moving in the next area.