By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Construction on a more permanent home for a local farmers market is expected to begin within the next few weeks.
Bids from six companies vying for the opportunity to build the 3,600-square-foot facility were opened at Glasgow City Hall on Nov. 26, with one bid significantly less than the others. City officials and representatives from Precision Engineering of Tompkinsville, the company that developed the design and bid specifications for the project, announced that they would be reviewing the bids closely to ensure they were complete and met all the requirements before reaching a decision on what the best bid was, and it wouldn’t necessarily be the lowest bid.
Five of the bids were in the range between nearly $1.3 million and nearly $1.6 million. They – in order from lowest to highest – were from Sunbelt Construction; Woodbine Construction; Stephens Construction; Scott, Murphy & Daniels; and ProCrete.
The outlier was a bid for $779,000 from Concentric Corp. of America, which does business as Staco Building Co. and is based in London, Ky.
Ultimately, that lowest was the one they chose, said Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works and city engineer, when Glasgow News 1 followed up with him recently.
Although the company has been chosen, a formal contract is not in place just yet, he said. That is expected to happen in the first week or two of 2025. The company is ready to start once the contract is in hand, he said.
From the time the contract starts, “substantial completion” is supposed to occur within 240 days. That means a few minor finishing touches could be left to accomplish.
“At that point, we’d be able to use it, though,” McGowan said.
The city owns the property along West Main Street between the post office and the site of the justice center, and it will likewise own the facility, construction of which is being funded partially with grants. The plan is for the city to lease it to Sustainable Glasgow, a nonprofit organization that manages the Bounty of the Barrens Farmers Market.
In the interim, winter markets are from 8 a.m. to noon on first and third Saturdays at the Barren County Extension Service on first and third Saturdays. In the spring, the market moves to the Glasgow Public Square – or adjacent to it in the city parking lot on the west side of the square when other events take precedence – every Saturday for those same hours.
