By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Crews with the Montevallo-based Wayne Davis construction company soon will begin working to build a facility to house the city of Alabaster’s garbage trucks after the City Council awarded a bid for the project during their Aug. 28 meeting.

Council members voted 5-0 during the meeting to award a $1.25 million bid to Wayne Davis to construct the public works facility between the park’s central lake and the Alabaster Police Department shooting range. Council President Scott Brakefield and Greg Farrell were absent from the meeting.

The bid came a few months after council members voted to enter into a $66,600 contract with the Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon engineering and architectural firm to design the proposed public works facility, which is slated to be constructed on the southern end of Limestone Park off U.S. 31. The contract will be paid for from the city’s garbage fund.

City leaders decided to work with Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon to design the building before bidding it out after it recently rejected a pair of bids to design and construct the entire project.

In March, the city received two bids from companies interested in designing and constructing the facility, but the City Council voted to reject both bids during an April 10 meeting after one bid did not meet specifications and the other was significantly higher than the city had estimated.

After working with Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon, the city received three bids for the project, and opened them on Aug. 18. Of the three bids, Wayne Davis was the lowest.

Chris Grace with Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon previously said the city could save about $60,000 on the project by foregoing items such as an upgraded standing-seam roof, painting exposed steel and other items.

Council members said they would not be in favor of cutting the items if it significantly affected the aesthetics of the building, and left them in the bid they approved on Aug. 28.

The facility will include a brick façade on the front, and paving in the area immediately surrounding the building. The city is not currently planning to pave the gravel road leading from U.S. 31 to the garbage truck facility, as was originally planned.

Once completed, the Limestone facility will play a major role in Alabaster’s in-house garbage service, which is slated to begin in January 2018. The city’s current garbage and recycling provider, Advanced Disposal, will continue to serve the city until then.