The Peabody Building will soon get replacement equipment installed to fix a faulty air conditioning system that sent several city and county employees to other offices spaces last summer when it broke.
The Henderson City Commission approved a bid totaling $623,600 to install the specialized equipment, which air handling units and condensing units, to Haase Mechanical Contractors, LLC, of Henderson.
The equipment was purchased in December, according to Assistant City Manager Buzzy Newman, and that total was $385,000-plus.
All told, the cost of the project comes to $1.08 million, according to documents in Tuesday’s meeting agenda packet.
That’s well below the $3.5 million estimate the city first received last summer. At that time, officials thought that the entire HVAC system would need to be removed and replaced, Newman said Tuesday. Additionally, some employees who worked in the Peabody Building chose to relocate to the old Henderson Municipal Power & Light building last summer.
But after taking that plan off the table, city officials came back with a different plan in November and this approval and corresponding work are the results of that.
Officials also are placing penalties if the installation is not done by the end of April. They want the system to be in place before the heat of a Henderson summer arrives. Newman said the contract has a start date and end date.
“If the end date moves for any reason other than a delay in equipment delivery, they will be assessed a daily penalty,” he said.
Henderson Mayor Brad Staton said the first estimate was for $3.5 million and that plan wouldn’t have had the job done by April.
But with the current plan, he said there were three pieces that were needed and came through—do the job right, save money from the initial $3.5 million bid and get the work done before the summer heat.
