Renovation plans for the Memorial Union have been pushed back because the project had only one bid, which was almost 50 percent more than the $12.4 million estimate for the project.

The $17.6 million bid came from Miron Construction Co., whose corporate offices are in Neenah, Wis. Miron was behind renovations to Hoover Hall and the construction of the Gerdin Business Building and the new Ames Middle School.

“We were surprised we only had one bid,” said Dean McCormick, assistant director of construction services for facilities planning and management.

The reason there was only one bid could be a combination of issues, McCormick said.

“There is a large workload in the area; we had several people who had planned to bid,” he said. “It’s a complex project, and they just felt they weren’t interested in it.”

Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance, said he agrees with this reason.

“There is a fair amount of construction work going on in central Iowa right now,” he said. “It turned out to be a fairly large, complex project, and we will occupy the building during the construction.”

The renovation plans include an addition on the south side of the building, allowing the University Book Store to expand, a new south entrance and connecting the ground level of the parking ramp to the Memorial Union.

Administrators are in the process of working with contractors, architects and other officials to modify the estimated budget and find ways to cut costs.

“We’ve got to look at all facets of the job,” McCormick said. “There’s no one item we can change to bring the project back online.”

He said despite this setback, the union plans to go through with the project.

“We’re looking at ways to reduce the cost to deliver the project that everyone wants,” he said. “We expect to do that.”

The renovation was originally planned to start in June; however, re-bids are expected to be taken in the fall, pushing back construction to winter 2005 or spring 2006, Madden said.

McCormick said it is difficult to estimate a budget for the project because it is so unusual and because of rising costs in building supplies.

“There were a variety of bids [within Miron’s bid] where it was higher than the estimate,” McCormick said.

“Prices have been pretty volatile in the building industry in the past year, year and a half. That made it hard to estimate and made our estimate less successful than we’d like.”