The Maple Leaf Management Group will not spend an additional $200,000 to put wooden beams in the lobby of the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center. The group has decided go with Laminated Erectors Inc. of Trafalgar instead, which was the second-lowest bidder on the beam project.
The first-choice bidder on that project was Helmsburg-based company The Beamery.
In August, the management group voted to create a line of credit to pay for the beams.
The management group had paid The Beamery $18,500 so it could start engineering drawings for the lobby beams, and so construction could stay on schedule.
But management group co-President Barry Herring said delays in getting those drawings caused them to meet with Laminated Erectors Inc. instead. Laminated Erectors Inc. said they could build the beams for $150,000 less.
“We didn’t really have a choice. They could get the beams constructed in time, get it here to keep our construction on schedule and saved us $150,000. There was no decision,” Herring said.
The Beamery’s owner, David Watters, said he learned his company was no longer involved after that decision was made.
On Sept. 14, he said there was a lack of communication between his company and the Maple Leaf Management Group. He said his group was “diligently working on getting all the design engineering down to be able to provide the product that we were supposed to provide in a timely manner.
“I had pretty much put my designer full-time on the project to get it done, and all the sudden was told that we’re not doing it the day after they signed the contract with another supplier,” he said.
Herring said the Maple Leaf Management Group never saw one of the engineered drawings The Beamery had been working on.
Watters said his company had turned down other projects because of the Maple Leaf beam project. “The contract amount was a little over a half-million dollars. That’s a big amount, especially for a company that this past year, we did about $1 million. That’s 50 percent of our revenue,” he said.
Herring said that delays and lack of communication from The Beamery were what pushed the decision. “Do we feel bad? Yes. … When it came down to a $150,000 savings and still getting the project done on time, and giving him 10 days’ notice that we were having those issues and he never responded … that’s what it boils down to.”
Watters said he was unaware his project was over the group’s budget until he read it in the newspaper, and that he would have been willing to do “value engineering “with the group to bring down costs.
“If somebody would have come to me to say, ‘Gee, what can we do to save some money here to make this work?’ I would have said we will do whatever we can. … And that’s the real frustration. Of all the suppliers and subcontractors on the project, if it was over budget, why were we the one chosen to be taken out?” he said.
The Maple Leaf Management Group is not ruling out working with The Beamery in the future on other projects that aren’t currently budgeted, like a timber-framed building in the beer garden for shade and rain protection. “We’ll go to The Beamery first,” said Jim Schultz, who chairs the construction committee for the management group.
The management group is still working on applying for a Destination Development grant through the Indiana Office of Tourism Development to get up to $200,000 to use toward the Maple Leaf project. Bruce Gould, human resources and staffing committee chair for the management group, is working on that application. If the group does get the grant money, and it isn’t needed to go toward the beams, it could go toward other lobby enhancements, like artwork, he said.
