Badenton Beach pier before construction. FILE PHOTO

By Tom Vaught
sun staff writer

BRADENTON BEACH – While the city suffers through another season without its pier, there was more bad new for the commission regarding the cost to get the pier renovated.

Commissioners approved six change orders that will add $183.254 to the $1.805 million project at a work meeting last week. In addition, Mayor John Chappie has tightened restrictions on allowing work to begin that has not been approved by the city commission.

According to the description of the change orders handed out at the meeting, two of the orders were marked "Approved during owner (the city) meetings," one was marked "Permission to proceed while pricing," another said "Price prior to proceeding" and a fifth one said, "Proceed with material order while pricing."

Some commissioners had questions regarding the change orders and Chappie warned that the added expense would leave the city with a little more than $140,000 in its line of credit for the project to deal with future cost increases.

Chappie recently replace Commissioner Bill Shearon as liaison to the project with himself and will attend the Friday morning meetings between the contractor, the architect and members of the city’s pier team which consists of city department heads. At the first meeting last Friday, Chappie added a requirement that the contractor and architect sign any changes that would add to the project’s expense before the city would approve the added money.

The changes, set forth by contractor Southern Cross Construction, architect Tom O’Brien and consultants Sego and Sego and Consultech, ranged from changes to accommodate utilities to enlarging the restaurant’s floorplan.

The first change order was a mixture of good and bad news. The good news was that they agreed to use a vinyl sheet pile retaining wall with a concrete cap instead of a concrete retaining wall at a savings of $5,325. The bad news was that they found a concrete slab some and rip rap in the circle in front of the pier and the retaining wall to the south of it that had to be removed at a cost of $8,625. Other items also added to the net cost of $6,772.

The second order was for tilt-down windows in the northern wall of the restaurant to make them easier to clean and an aluminum roof instead of a metal one at a cost of $1,655.

The third change was to comply with a Manatee County requirement for connecting the fire line to the county main. According to Southern Cross Project Director Tom Edwards, Consultech specified the tap design and it made it past the county inspector the first time, but not the second time. The extra cost is $40,772.

The fourth change was for $33,170 to increase the size of the restaurant to accommodate the appliances. When asked why these changes were not foreseen, O’Brien said the bid only asked for a permittable restaurant, and now that they have measured the size of the appliances, they found it was too much in too little space.

The fifth change adds $82,534 for plumbing changes that include double layer pipe for plumbing along the exterior of the pier, containment cleanouts in different sections of the pier and a waste system for the kitchen.

The final change was to relocate the grease trap at a cost of $2,598.

Edwards said it appeared these changes were the most expensive ones and outlined several changes coming down the pike. They included changes to the sewer design, relocating the water meter, upgrading the fire line from PVC to galvanized steel and mechanical revisions to accommodate the larger kitchen.