Celina will likely make money on plant destruction

Celina apparently will receive $26,000 from a Cleveland-area contractor who wants to tear down the city's infamous Blue Goose.

City administration officials still are evaluating seven wide-ranging proposals for the demolition of the former power plant, but expect to contract with B&B Wrecking, Cleveland. The B&B bid was the only one of the seven proposals that offered to pay the city for the opportunity to do the work and claim the scrap metal from the site.

"It's the only time I've seen a public project like this where we get paid," city development consultant Kent Bryan said.

The bids spanned more than $1.6 million from best to worst. Some companies offered no credit for the scrap metal which the demolished building will yield. Two companies bid nearly $500,000 or more and two others wanted to charge more than $1 million to do the job.

The best proposals behind B&B's apparent successful bid were offers to charge $50,000 and $247,500 for the work. Even paying $50,000 to have the Blue Goose site cleared would be a good deal for the city, Bryan said.

Things weren't looking good when city officials opened the sealed bids last week. The two highest bids of $1.6 million and $1.1 million were the first two opened and Bryan admitted he was beginning to doubt his plan to have the old power plant taken down for little or no cost. But the bids kept getting better as they worked through the stack of seven, and B&B's offer to pay the city was the next-to-last envelope opened.

"It's a best-case scenario for the city," Bryan said.

Celina City Council meets as a committee-of-the-whole Wednesday to discuss the project and an ordinance awarding a contract could be considered at next week's regular council meeting.

B&B Wrecking has worked locally before, including doing some demolition work for St. Henry Consolidated Local Schools, Bryan said.

"B&B has a lengthy resume. They've worked for a lot of municipalities and governments," Bryan said.

Celina officials plan to keep the concrete foundation underneath the Blue Goose intact so it can be used as the site for new water treatment facilities. The city plans to build a structure to house granular activated carbon (GAC) treatment to the city's treatment process to gain compliance with EPA water quality regulations.

The city has until November 2007 to get its water into compliance or face daily fines of $25,000.

B&B will be able to keep up with the city's aggressive timeline, Bryan said. The company promised in its bid to have the site cleared within 75 days of signing the contract. Most other companies had offered to finish within 90 days.

The Blue Goose was built in 1969 and was plagued by problems from the beginning. It never produced enough power to run the city and was finally shut down permanently in the spring of 1973.