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ALPENA — The Northeast Michigan Materials Management Authority (NMMMA) board met on Thursday and discussed progress on the authority’s re-bid for its new materials recovery facility (MRF) which will be built on airport road. The board hopes to have the request for proposal (RFP) out for bid by Aug. 10.

NMMMA Executive Director Bailey Barr said that the goal is to close the RFPs on Sept. 10 and to hopefully award a bid by Sept. 17.

NMMMA was forced to scale back plans to fit the project within its budget after the original bid earlier this year for Devere Industrial, LLC came in $500,000 to $700,000 more than what the authority’s budget would cover. Consequently, the authority faces a tight deadline to meet benchmarks to receive a grant extension with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

The EGLE grant that is helping pay for the project expires on Sept. 30, and the authority must show that it has a contractual agreement with a contracting company for the construction of the project to receive an extension, according to Barr.

Barr told The News in February that the authority and Devere were working to lower the final project cost to $3.2 million. However, the cuts were not enough to get the authority back on budget.

Barr told board members that the RFP is a cost estimate and not a “contractor’s bid.”

“There are some items that are on the higher end of estimating, due to you don’t know what things are going to come in bid-wise,” he said. “Built-in contingencies for each section to really give a good cushion and to really try to estimate what bids would be coming in for this re-bid project.”

Barr told The News on Friday that NMMMA has determined two cost estimates for its RFP. The first includes a permanent office building and comes to $5.9 million. The second includes an office trailer for $5.7 million.

Barr said on Thursday that depending on the contractor bids NMMMA receives will determine if the authority chooses to go with the first or second option.

Barr told The News in May that the authority has received a $2.7 million United States Department of Agriculture grant; $1.2 million grant from the EGLE; and funding from local organizations to fund the new MRF. The authority also has the ability to use $1.6 million in county bonds to pay for the project.

In total, the authority has $5.6 million to spend, though Barr added NMMMA wants to minimize the amount of bonds they have to sell since those will have to be paid back.

“Obviously when bids come back, hopefully we don’t have to borrow the entire $1.6 million,” Rachel Smolinski, Alpena city manager, said on Thursday. “That would be great.”

Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.