Bids to raze foundry are good news for Grafton

Grafton’s Community Development Authority on Wednesday was expected to recommend hiring a contractor to raze the Goldberg Foundry, an abandoned building that the village is working to redevelop.

Community Development Director Gabe Gilbertson said Monday that the village received six bids for the work, all of them “quite a bit lower than our anticipated budget for this.

“We were pleasantly surprised,” he added.

The budget is $650,000, which includes engineering services as well as demolition.

The Village Board recently approved a management policy needed to accept a $150,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. that will help pay for the demolition work.

The remainder of the funds will come from the village’s tax incremental financing district No. 6.

Gilbertson said the six bids to demolish the former foundry at 1019-1025 11th Ave. came from contractors in southeast Wisconsin.

Three of the bids were close, he said, two were higher than the others and one was significantly lower.

The lowest bid, he said, was for $189,000, and the next lowest was for about $300,000.

Given the difference in price, Gilbertson said, the village is having the engineering firm Bolton & Menk review the bids to ensure the low bid meets the standards.

“We have some questions,” he said. “That one (the lowest bid) might not be qualified. But even if we go with the second-lowest (bid), it’s still a big savings.”

Gilbertson said he believes there are two reasons for the number of bids the village received and the prices quoted.

“It’s a relatively large project,” he said. And the village held a walk-through with contractors planning to bid on the project that cleared up many questions that could have otherwise driven up the bids.

The CDA was expected to recommend a contractor to the Village Board, which will consider awarding the contract when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8.

The demolition work could begin as soon as the end of September, Gilbertson said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes into 2027 just because of the scale of the demolition,” he said.

The demolition work is only the first phase of the project, Gilbertson said, noting this work will only take the building down to the slab.

After that’s done, he said, the village will investigate what’s in the soil underneath the building to determine if there is contamination that could require remediation.

“With its industrial use, I’m sure there were likely underground tanks or chemicals used that may have leached through the floors,” Gilbertson said last month.

  Gilbertson said it’s difficult to predict when the entire foundry site will be developed or what will be created there.

“Until the demolition is done and we have a better idea of the time frame ... that’s when we’ll start exploring those options,” he said. “I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

But the village won’t put the project on the back burner, Gilbertson stressed, noting that redevelopment of the former foundry, which was abandoned in 2003, is at the heart of the village’s tax incremental financing district No. 6.

“The fact they created a TIF district puts the pressure on the village to keep moving forward,” he said.