Soldotna-based Orion Construction will be paid around $1.4 million to repair the roof of the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s administration building in Soldotna this summer after approval of the contract by the borough assembly on June 18.
An ordinance redirecting toward the project unused federal grant funding — originally attached to maintenance projects in Homer — was approved by the assembly in May.
According to a memo attached to the ordinance, capital funds were allocated for repairs of the administration building’s roof in 2023. That project would have replaced the existing roof system and stormwater drainage system and modified the parapet. When bids were opened in June of that year, only one bid was received, from Wasilla-based Orion Construction, for roughly $1.5 million.
Some of the work included — specifically “non-roof related work” — was removed and separately completed that year, but roof replacement and structural repair remains a pressing issue, per the memo. Bids for the now-reduced scope of work were opened in April, and again only one bid was received, from Orion, for $1.4 million.
Further reducing the scope is impractical, the memo says, and so the borough is redirecting roughly $576,000 in American Rescue Plan Act grant funding to award the contract for the project. That funding was already allocated to projects in Homer and Hope, but the memo says those projects either already have been completed or likely will not be completed before a deadline for use of those funds by the end of the year.
“Due to a limited construction season, time is of the essence,” the memo reads. That’s why the ordinance was introduced, sent to hearing and approved during that May meeting. No public comment was received on the ordinance and it was passed without objection on the consent agenda.
The contract was, similarly, approved via the consent agenda on June 18, without any further comment or discussion.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
