News Photo by Temi Fadayomi The Alpena Community College Board of Trustees sit together at their special board meeting on Tuesday. They unanimously approved a resolution to contract with Sweet Heating and Cooling of Glennie, for the Base Bidwork and the Additive Bid Alternate for the Besser Technical Center heating plant upgrade for a cost not to exceed $433,000.

ALPENA — Alpena Community College officially has a partner for its upcoming boiler project as the ACC Board of Trustees unanimously voted to contract with Sweet Heating and Cooling.

“I will say that it is a tight window of opportunity that we have here,” ACC Director of Facilities Management Kurt Konieczny said. “We’re going to definitely fill that window with work time. We have a good architectural mechanical design company working with us that has everything clearly spelled out and are here to help along the way with any decisions if any do pop up throughout the process.”

According to Konieczny, the current heating system for Besser Technical Center was installed in 2008 and has experienced equipment failures in the past 12 months, which included a leaking boiler which is not repairable and two remaining boilers, which are still functional but appear to be nearing the end of their life cycles.

Konieczny says that now is the necessary time to get this project started so it can be ready before the winter season rolls back around.

“The boiler plant in the Besser Tech Center is actually three boilers that serve the Besser Tech Center building and also our Newport Center building,” Konieczny said. “What was crucial is the larger space about ACC. Through the winter, we were experiencing intermittent failures and ultimate total failure in one of the three boilers. Moving towards springtime, this is a crucial point to get longer lead time items, like boilers and pumps, contract with somebody to get them purchased, and then have time to put the boiler room together and have it inspected and up and running for the fall of the heating season.”

Konieczny received six bids for the boiler project on May 28 and after some consideration and deliberation, recommended the bid from Sweet Heating and Cooling, of Glennie, for a total of $433,000

In addition to being the least expensive of the six offers, Konieczny also says that upon looking into their references, Sweet Heating and Cooling has a tremendous record with its clientele.

Temi Fadayomi can be reached at 989-358-5693 or tfadayomi@thealpenanews.com.