By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – The Yachats city council has approved a bid to begin renovations on the city’s historic Little Log Church Museum despite the higher-than-expected cost.
During a public hearing at its Wednesday meeting, the council approved a $370,000 bid from Top to Bottom Contractors of Newport to begin renovations — weather willing — sometime this winter.
The city received two bids for the project, which Civil West Engineering Services estimated would cost about $263,000. The other bid from Lippincott Construction & North Pacific Woodworks was $460,000. But its bid was for a new log-cabin-style structure, which is not what the city requested.
Prior to its unanimous decision to accept the bid, the council heard from Civil West’s senior project manager Tim Gross and Top to Bottom’s Jose Gonzales. Gross stood by the company’s cost estimate and submitted documents advising council to reject both bids and instead seek new ones in the spring.
Gross said bids would be more competitive in the spring when companies were seeking summer work and have better weather to begin the project. It would also give Lippincott a chance to re-submit a bid for renovation only.
“I guess it depends on your position in the city,” Gross said. “If the city has the funds to do the work and you just want to get it done, I don’t think you’re going to make a bad decision to award the contract.”
And he added that by waiting, the city could be more intentional in finding local contractors to bid.
It’s a question of how quickly the city wants to get the project finished, Gross said, which he suggested would not take much longer if council decided to wait for bids in spring because of the approaching rainy season. There is only so much a contractor can accomplish in winter, he said.
Jose Gonzales with Top to Bottom told councilors he had reviewed Civil West’ estimate and believes it was low because it was completed in 2019 before the post-Covid increase in material costs.
“I pulled new numbers based on current prices for the same materials they had asked for and just for the siding alone, (it) came in at an extra $20,000,” Gonzales said. “Electrical came in at an extra $50,000 from the numbers that they had estimated. So that’s the reason why our estimate is a little bit higher than what their estimates came in at.”
He said he checked prices with the same suppliers used by Civil West in its estimate.
“And also, I think doing the project now, in the wintertime is also when we as the contractor have the most time,” Gonzales said. “Summertime is when we have the most amount of work so it might be harder to do during the summertime. We are ready to go if you guys decide to go for it.”
The company has a lot of experience with this type of renovation, he said, and is currently remodeling the homeless shelter in Newport, which will be finished in the next couple months.
Friends group will help
Members of Friends of the Little Log Church Museum also attended the meeting and discussed increased funding options with the council.
Fundraising by the group’s nonprofit board to help finance the restoration reached nearly $200,000 last year following the bequest of $150,000 from Betsy Price of Yachats, the former co-owner of the Rock Park Cottages who died in 2022.
The city allocated $100,000 for the renovation this fiscal year and another $100,000 for next year.
Little Log board member Karl Christianson addressed the council to say the group would contribute $100,000 toward the project before receiving pushback from Mayor Craig Berdie.
“My question around that would be, in the past we’ve been told by Friends of the Little Log Museum that you couldn’t do fundraising because the city hadn’t approved it.” Berdie said. “And now we need $70,000 or more or delay.
“So the question I have for the board is what can you do to help us to fill the $70,000 gap?” he continued. “What kind of fundraising are you willing to commit to help us get further along?”
Christianson said the board was hoping to hold some money back for interior projects like shelving and displays for artifacts and perhaps some new flooring.
“However, we most likely could come up with maybe another $35,000 if the city would be willing to perhaps put in another $35,000 to bring it up to the $370,000,” he said.
City manager Bobbi Price interjected to say she thinks the city should move forward with the project and inquired whether the Friend’s board has anyone familiar with grant writing. Christianson said they do not and Price suggested it could be a future conversation for raising funds.
“The community has been so wonderfully responsive … in their support of the project,” Christianson said. “It has been overwhelming. So we are more than happy to do what’s necessary.”
He went on to say the project has been in the works for nine years but later clarified with YachatsNews it has been five years.
Berdie acknowledged the community’s generosity but reiterated his hope the Friends’ board will pursue additional funds, especially now that the reason given in the past that it could not pursue grants because the city had not committed has been eliminated.
“I’m afraid that we are going to run short,” Berdie said. “We really don’t have this kind of money to complete it without a commitment from the Friends to help us get to these numbers that we’re seeing from construction.”
The Little Log Church in Yachats was built with donated labor and materials in 1927 and was officially dedicated in the early 1930s. The logs were floated down the Yachats River and hauled to what is now the corner of West Third and Pontiac streets in downtown Yachats by teams of horses. It has undergone numerous restoration projects to repair structural issues over the years but has been closed and protected from the elements since 2021.
The restoration involves suspending the roof while removing and rebuilding the outer walls while also redoing the footing, then re-attaching the roof and the building to the footing. The new siding is a concrete-like material that will look like logs but standup better to the climate.
“The biggest challenge is the leveling because there’s not much room underneath,” Gonzales said.
The bell tower will be rebuilt but the bell will be removed and refurbished or replaced by a different contractor in the future.
After more discussion councilors decided money from the city’s visitor amenity funds could be used to cover the additional $35,000 as well as some extra for any unseen contingencies.
“I do feel like that would be a good place to find the additional funds,” Price said. “It’s an investment in real property that benefits tourism so it could fall under that.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
Just asking, but is this thing really worth saving?
What a waste of money.