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ALPENA -- The Northeast Michigan Materials Management Authority (NMMMA) reissued its bid for the new materials recovery facility (MRF) today. The authority received an 18 month extension for the EGLE grant which will help fund the MRF construction.
The news recycling center will be built near the intersection of M-32 and Airport Road.
The current bid includes two options. NMMMA Executive Director Bailey Barr told The News in July that the first option includes a permanent office building and comes to $5.9 million. The second includes an office trailer for $5.7 million. Barr said depending on the contractor bids NMMMA receives will determine if the authority chooses to go with the first or second option.
Barr also said in July that the goal was to close the request for proposal (RFP) on Sept. 10 and to hopefully award a bid by Sept. 17.
At Thursday's NMMMA monthly meeting, Barr told NMMMA board members that the RFP timeline had been "adjusted a little bit" due to delay with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
"A little bit delayed because we had a little bit of a hiccup," Barr said. "I totally forgot we had to resend everything back to USDA to get approval ... so that set us back a little bit. But not too far though."
"Everything came back good from USDA," he added. "Everything's good on that end."
Barr said that the goal is to have the MRF operational by 2028.
NMMMA Board Member Don Gilmet added that he doesn't believe that the building will be difficult to build.
NMMMA had to scale back its original plans for the facility to fit the project within the authority's budget. The authority faced a tight deadline to meet benchmarks to receive the grant extension with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).
Previously, NMMMA walked away from its bid agreement with Devere Industrial, LLC, which had a price tag of $3.9 million for the project.
The authority awarded the project bid to Devere in December. This bid added an additional $500,000 to $700,000 to the original cost estimate NMMMA had projected earlier in the project’s lifespan.
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 budget cuts were not enough to get the authority back on budget.
The initial goal of NMMMA was to reissue the bids in late July and hopefully award the bid to a company in the fall. The EGLE grant that is helping pay for the project was set to expire on Sept. 30, and the authority had to show that it has a contractual agreement with a contracting company for the construction of the project to receive an extension.
To fund the project, the authority has received a $2.7 million USDA grant; $1.2 million grant from the EGLE; and funding from local organizations. The authority also has the ability to use $1.6 million in county bonds to pay for however much the cost exceeds the amount of grant funding the authority has received thus far.
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.
In September, the authority approved the purchase of new sorting equipment that cost about $2.1 million, after factoring in tariffs since the company is based in Quebec, Canada.
Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.