By DONNA THORNTON, Editor
In a move none of Boaz’s city leaders enjoyed, the council added almost $1.6 million to the price tag for the property improvements project at the old Boaz Outlet Center in a called meeting last week.
The approved change order increases the total contract amount, capped at $1,596,512.50, and Mayor Tim Walker said the city will be working with the contractor to keep that cost increase lower. The revised total contract price for the project is now $5,982,244.01.
The council assembled for a called meeting after none of the council members were willing to make a motion for the change order at Monday night’s meeting.
Walker brought up the need for a $1.7 million change order at Monday night’s council meeting, but when he entertained a motion from the council, none of the council members offered it. He said the city received updated information that brought the change order price down, but council members indicated they didn’t have time to look at the measure closely before voting and believed that they should.
Council member Alan Hales said the need for more information was the only hold up in voting. He said the change order threw “six-figure numbers” at the council and they needed more information. The goal has always been to get parking space opened as quickly as possible for the restaurant and business owners in the center, he said.
Some owners of businesses that have been affected by the work to repave the parking lot attended the called meeting. Mary Riddle, owner of Grumpy’s restaurant, expressed appreciation for the council’s action that should get the project moving toward completion soon. She said she knew they were working hard to get paving done and to get more parking space opened up for their customers.
The parking lot project is one that was initiated by the prior administration and inherited by the current one. Work got underway in October 2025, and construction has been ongoing since then, with a large portion of the parking lot fenced off.
The project has involved more than just scraping pavement and replacing it; work crews have been digging to correct drainage problems in the parking lot.
“They’ve found a lot of bad materials in the bottom of it,” the mayor told council members during a work session prior to the Monday (Jan. 12) meeting. The city paid a professional engineer, and they did some core drilling but “they missed a bunch of stuff,” he said.
The initial proposed change order was for as much as $1,723,252 on the project – and would have brought the revised total contract price to approximately $6,108,938.
When Walker asked for a motion for the lesser amount, Hales offered it, and council member Steven Bates offered a second. Council member Rodney Frix voted no, but mayor and the rest of the council approved it.
Walker said the council worked to find the best resolution, and he believed they’d found it.
Council member Matt Brannon said none of the council members liked where they found themselves standing on the issue. “We paid for a service that we thought we got a good deal on, we thought we were clear on groundwork. Turns out the service we paid for was not,” he said. The council was left with two options: Litigation that might leave the parking lot as it is for 18 months or more, costing just as much money and affecting a lot of businesses – something no one wanted to see happen.
This fork in the road has left the council, he said, forced to “eat” the added cost to be able to get the project finished and get parking space restored for those businesses in the center.
Bates said the council appreciated the businesses being patient. It would have been a terrible decision, he said, to leave project as is. The Boaz Recreation Center shares parking space that’s affected and has some outstanding events scheduled, he said. “We looked at cost savings and got some of them down,” he said. He said he’s been to the site often, talking to Cody Lambert Construction. He said Lambert had helped, because it’s his company, his quarry and his rock, and he can come down on the price while some contractors would not.
While he regretted the increase, Bates said he believes the results will be good.
Council member Caleb Williams said everyone is working to be good stewards of the city’s funds. “We don’t know what’s underneath the ground until they get there,” he said.
Frix said he was upset with the way the city got to condition it’s in at this spot. He said the previous administration had borings done at 28 spots and did not anticipate any problems.
“Either that was wrong or we were misled,” he said. “We had an engineering consultant that, if the report was solid … I think it was their responsibility to let the previous administration know.” They should have told the previous council that when the pavement was pulled up there might be issues; that they might want to have some extra money ready, Frix said. He also questioned whether all the pavement should have been pulled up at once. It’s possible, he said, that these problems with the project couldn’t have been foreseen.
“I don’t think it’s 100% on the city and I did not feel comfortable passing that burden along to the people,” he said. “I had too many open questions to make an informed decision.”
Frix said he hopes the project goes well, that savings are found, and that six months from now, it turns out to be a great investment.
Walker said he met with the job foreman and was told the crew is trying to get the parking lot, from Grumpy’s all the way across ready to get to subgrade so that people can drive and park on it. It would not be paved, but the fences could come down there would be room to accommodate customers. Pavement will be removed in front of 19th Hole and Frank’s, he said, and the work is expected to be easier there.
“My idea is, we’ve got a path forward. I don’t like to have to spend extra money, but at the same time, I don’t want that mess out there for another year or two while we litigate it to death,” the mayor said.
“Hopefully by about June 15 we can go out there and it’s going to be a beautiful project and we’re going to move on to other things in Boaz,” he said.
