MASON CITY — Mason City’s city administrator says the bids for the next phase of the multi-purpose arena that’s part of the River City Renaissance Project will be delayed a week.

Aaron Burnett says it was difficult for the city to get some exact numbers for the contractors to potentially bid on the project, which includes the structural steel, concrete foundation and ice plant components of the center.  “It starts making it very difficult to have a competitive bidding process if they can’t get the information in. Obviously the architect always keeps an eye to that, stays in constant communication to those who are looking to bid, and took into consideration their concerns and realized it would be in the best interest of everyone if we could push that back a little bit.”

Bids were originally due into the city this week, but that deadline has been pushed back with the bid opening on February 6th, with the council approving it at their February 19th meeting.  Burnett says work is underway on the first bid project that deals with demolition of the former JC Penney location where the arena will be built. “Dean Snyder Construction was excited to get going on this winter work, because obviously weather like this doesn’t allow for a lot of work. Doing some things inside is always welcome when you are dealing with low temperatures. I think this was a good project for a lot of contractors to pick up. They did get working immediately on it. There’s already some construction fencing and there is quite a bit of debris that has already been removed from the building.”

Burnett made his comments on the “Ask the Mayor” program on AM-1300 KGLO earlier today. Listen back to the full program by heading to the audio player below.