Hattiesburg City Council recently approved a contract increase of $160,017.60 with Hanco Corporation that will allow that company to proceed with the removal of unsuitable soils – along with replacement material for that – at the Hattiesburg Public Safety Complex on Edwards and Hall streets.
That increase includes $84,800 for the import of 8,480 cubic yards of filling material at $10 per cubic yard; the export of 8,480 cubic yards of unsuitable material at $7 per cubic yard; $7,208 for 5 percent overhead and profit; and $8,649.60 for 6 percent bonds, tax and insurance.
“On construction sites, you have to get to a certain compaction to be able to put in foundations, depending upon the height of the buildings,” said Ann Jones, who serves as chief administrative officer for the City of Hattiesburg. “The soil that was there would not compact tight enough, so we had to bring in soil that would meet those standards.”
The public safety complex project will cost approximately $26.5 million and has a “substantial completion” date of March 2022. It will serve as the new home for Hattiesburg Police Department and municipal court. The $160,0017.60 increase came from the $1.8 million that the city set aside each of the last two fiscal years for items like furniture, fixtures and overruns.
“There wasn’t any new money borrowed,” Mayor Toby Barker said.
The Hattiesburg Public Safety Complex project, which has been discussed for the last several years as a solution to the police department’s aging facilities, took its first official step in September 2016 when municipal court moved from the Hall Street site to its temporary location in the former federal courthouse on West Pine Street. That move was followed by the Parks and Recreation Department, which moved from Katie Avenue to a new location at Tatum Park, allowing HPD’s dispatch to move temporarily into the Katie Avenue building.
LIFE of Mississippi, which was located adjacent to the former HPD building, then moved into a new location on West 7th Street before HPD staff moved into their temporary location on Klondyke Street.
Demolition on the Hall Street site was completed in late 2018 – minus the former Methodist hospital section – and HPD and municipal court will move into the new facility as soon as it is available.
“(The Klondyke Street) building is a very functional building for what we need that building to be right now,” Barker said in a previous story. “We know that whenever the police department transitions back to the facility at Hall and Edwards, that (location) will be a very usable space for other municipal services.”
