Catoosa is seeking new general contractor bids for the Blue Whale visitors center project after initial bids came in over budget.
Interim City Manager Josh Brown said the city believes this won’t delay its plan to break ground on the new structure by August.
Through subcontractor Studio 45 Architects, which designed the planned visitor’s center, Catoosa advertised for bids in mid-May. Brown said nine bids came in, all exceeding $3 million.
“They were crazy, crazy high, almost $950 a square foot,” Brown said. “… It’s only a 3,700-square-foot building, and so it was just way above our budget.”
Catoosa is mostly funding the project with a $1.8 million grant from the Oklahoma Route 66 Revitalization Grant Program. He thanked local and state government officials for helping make the project possible.
Brown said to reduce the overall cost, the city and its architects have slightly scaled down the project scope. The original design called for blue-and-white specialty tile for the exterior; the city is asking potential contractors to use less expensive EIFS, or synthetic stucco.
“When you throw the word ‘specialty’ in it, it causes everything to go sky-high,” Brown said.
He said the city isn’t cutting back on any of its plans for the interior of the visitors center. Studio 45 envisions it to include concessions, restrooms, rentable event space and glass walls recounting the whale’s history in words and pictures.
Brown said Catoosa originally hoped to open the visitors center to the public in April to align with Claremore’s Andy Payne 5K, designated by Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell as the beginning of Oklahoma’s Route 66 centennial celebration.
“But the whole year, especially the Tulsa area, we’re surrounded by different celebrations,” Brown said. “Tulsa is having a huge car thing, actually several different things. … We’re still shooting for April — if it rolls into May, so be it.”
Construction will force the city to temporarily close Blue Whale Park, Brown said, but it’s too early to say exactly when or for how long. Contractors will regrade the area from the water’s edge to about three-quarters of the way to Apache Street.
The city will dismantle the low wooden hut that houses the Blue Whale’s gift shop, as well as the round, pointed restroom pavilion. It already removed the mushrooms but will put them back after construction wraps, Brown said.
A few months ago, the city took down the Ark — originally the reptile farm that first drew Route 66 travelers to stop at the site, and later a structure people could rent for parties. Brown said the city will reconstruct the facade of the Ark and place it on the north edge of the pond.
“You get into the liability of things — it wasn’t ADA-compliant, you know,” Brown said. “Maybe down the road, we turn it back into something that is rentable.”
But the city isn’t touching the Blue Whale, Brown said.
“We’ve gotten so many calls and concerns about, ‘What are you doing to the whale?'” Brown said. “Nothing. We’re not doing anything to old Blue. He’s gonna look just the same.”