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IN VIEW: A rendering of the proposed Waverly Aquatic Center from Omaha-based firm Lamp Rynearson shows what Waverly’s new pool could look like once completed. 

WAVERLY – When the Waverly City Council voted two weeks ago to begin value engineering on the Waverly Aquatic Center project, it was a reversal of course. 

To that point, council members had held that they wanted to see the aquatic center built as it had been bid, despite the lowest bid on the project coming in $400,000 higher than the project estimate of $6 million. Members of the Greater Waverly Area Foundation Fund (GWAFF) pledged to continue fundraising, while the city had grants it could look to apply for in coming months. 

Before that, there had been hope that sales tax revenue generated after paying off the city’s $3.5 million bond would cover the rest of the cost. After crunching the numbers, there still would have been a $400,000 shortfall. 

After the vote to enter the value engineering stage, which elicited no discussion from the council, Council Member Aaron Hummel explained the reasoning. 

“I think we all just want to see it get built,” he said. 

In value engineering, elements of the project’s construction are considered along with more economical alternatives to potentially shave off the project’s overall cost. 

In this case, Waverly City Council members – as well as Mayor Bill Gerdes, Parks and Recreation director Shayna Murrell and City Administrator Stephanie Fisher – met with representatives of Carrothers Construction and engineering firm Lamp Rynearson on Aug. 30 to discuss possible cost-saving avenues the city could take to get the project under budget. 

At the meeting, Carrothers Executive Vice President Fritz Caspar went through a list of 26 potential deductions to the overall cost of the project, such as replacing store-front type entry doors with steel doors, substituting a computerized water filtration system with a typical sand filter and using a more jagged style of masonry for the aquatic center’s bathhouse, administrative building and utility building. 

Fisher said in an email that none of the decisions made in the meeting were “set in stone” – the meeting was functionally a workshop to gauge what impact a few cutbacks could have on Carrothers’ bid price. 

After two hours, the council found it could trim more than $300,000 off of the aquatic center’s scope without significantly altering a patron’s pool experience. But removing some items would come with additional engineering costs, and other items could still be necessary down the road if they’re delayed now. 

If the council votes to revise the bid package to reflect its value engineering decisions, the pool’s fixtures would largely remain the same as those included in the bid package. Lamp Rynearson representative Andy Smith said that’s his typical approach when value engineering a pool.

“I always default to this experience that has been designed around a pool, and it’s not just (Lamp Rynearson) designing it,” Smith said. “It’s been a lot of input between you and the community as to what you want.”

The only potential cutback on the pool’s design was the removal of a peninsula with shade umbrellas that separates two zero-entry areas, both intended for use by different age groups of children. The peninsula itself costs $28,600, but there would likely be a cost of redesigning the pool without the peninsula.

The council did not come to a decision on the item and hoped to receive an estimate from Lamp Rynearson on the cost of a slight redesign.

A similar decision was made regarding roofing substitutions that would remove the shed-style roofs planned for the aquatic center’s buildings and replace them with a hip truss roof. It was initially suggested that the roofs would have to be made of asphalt shingles for the project to realize the full $54,500 deduction. But a hip truss roof would be possible using metal rooftops.

“Hip and hop, I don’t care, I just want it to be metal,” said Council Member and GWAFF President Abbey Pascoe.

Another change that could create a major reduction in the bid’s cost was the removal of overhead lighting that would keep the pool lit for nighttime swimming – a difference of $57,300. The necessary conduit and infrastructure would still be included in the project to allow for the city to contract a local company to handle the lights’ installation in the future. 

The council also considered alternatives regarding fencing and the aquatic center’s front gate design. Fisher said the value engineering changes would have to be approved at a later council meeting. It remains unclear if further rounds of value engineering will take place.

Sam Crisler is a reporter for The Waverly News. Reach him via email at  samuel.crisler@wahoonewspaper.com.

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IN VIEW: A rendering of the proposed Waverly Aquatic Center from Omaha-based firm Lamp Rynearson shows what Waverly’s new pool could look like once completed.