By: Summer Kelley, Staff Reporter

Bids for the proposed community center for the City of Trenton are in and city administrators are not satisfied.

“Some of the building materials chosen pushed the cost higher than we expected,” Parks and Recreation Commissioner Chuck Cannon said.

Earlier this year, city commissioners gave the go-ahead to begin construction on a community center for the citizens of Trenton. The community center is intended to give residents of the city and county a nice place to meet that offers a large assembly room with a stage, a small gallery area and outdoor meeting areas, as well as an animal adoption center. The budget for this new meeting space was set at $475,000.

Unfortunately, bids for the community building came in much higher than the projected budget. The lowest bid was submitted by McBryar and Sons at $603,039. The remaining eight bids ranged from $632,000 to a high bid of $800,000.

Cannon does not appear to be worried by the high bids and said that McBryar and Son’s Construction has accepted an offer from the city to value bid the construction of the community center.

“…the architect will be working with them over the next week to get a bid together that will be acceptable and within our budget,” Cannon said.