The area southwest of Perry’s Pattee Park will look significantly different a year from now as a large expansion project will begin soon.

When the City went out for bid to build soccer fields and a pond at the site last fall they received no bid from contractors but the second go around, six companies expressed interest on the project and many of them were below the engineer’s estimate.

“I was literally dancing when those bids were opened.  So we were really happy with house those came out.  Actually we did it as a base bed for half of the expansion and then another alternate bid for the other two soccer fields.  So we were very happy that it came in about $120,000 under the engineer’s estimate for the base bid and under again for the alternate bid.  We actually ended up being able to accept both for about the same price as what we thought we were going to have to pay for just that base.”

That’s City Administrator Sven Peterson.

The engineer’s estimate for both the base project and the alternate bid was just under $600,000.  Perry will be able to complete both portions thanks to the low bidder, Spring Lake Construction from Polk City, at a cost of around $450,000.