The Soldotna City Council held a meeting on Wednesday the 13th to determine if the city manager would be authorized to enter a contract with Criterion General Inc. to aid in the construction of the Soldotna Field House.
Soldotna City Manager Janette Bower was pleased to announce that the cost of the field house was going to be much more manageable than originally anticipated.
“We are very excited to bring this before you for obvious reasons to be able to complete this project and also that it is well under the engineers estimate and we are have the ability to award this contract financially as well.”
Vice Mayor Lisa Parker also agreed with Council member Hutchings, saying that they received “five solid bids, and they were all within the same range, so nobody was priced extremely low or extremely high.
“The company that is going to be awarded this contract has constructed similar buildings in the state of Alaska. I look forward to working with them and then hopefully after they break ground and get it underway that, like we do with the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce, get quarterly reports, maybe they’ll come give us quarterly reports on how things are going with construction of the field house because this is a big deal for this area, not just for Soldotna, but for the entire Central Peninsula.”
As for Mayor Paul Whitney, he shares his optimism with this groundbreaking event, and would be excited if the construction project could be done sooner rather than later.
“I’d just like to say I’m very very happy with this bid. I’m very happy that we are going to get started on this project. I hope… by the summer of 2025, we will be in the building and doing lots of fun things, and a lot of our kids will be in there using the facility, and it will be a great asset to our community.”
After a final vote, the ordinance passed with all six members in favor.
