The Peoria City Council this week unanimously approved agreements for engineering and construction services for the planned Dee Hengst Amphitheater along the Illinois River.
The Hengst Foundation pre-selected Core Construction and Terra Engineering as a condition of its $11 million donation to the city to pursue the 5,000-seat outdoor performance venue in Festival Park, north of the Murray Baker Bridge.
With the nature of the funding path, the agreements approved Tuesday were built around contract templates from the American Institute of Architects, or AIA. City attorney Patrick Hayes said AIA is not Peoria’s typical contract method.
“Core Construction operates based on what is called a ‘maximum guaranteed price’ contract,” said Hayes. “Once the design elements are finalized, they will come back to the city with a guaranteed maximum price. If the city approves that, then we would agree to pay that price upon the completed project, and they accept any risk of cost overruns during the project.”
Hayes said a construction timeline is also dependent on when Terra Engineering completes its design work.
“All of the payment of funds, both to Terra and to and to Core, are dependent upon the approval and funding by the Hengst Foundation,” said Hayes. “So those terms and conditions should give the council some comfort about where’s the money coming from.”
Responding to a question from council member John Kelly about who might cover any shortfall in funding, Hayes noted the agreements commit the city to paying for preliminary infrastructure work that may be required prior to the start of construction.
“On the front end where we’re at today, we’ll have an identifiable amount under contract with Terra for the design of the amphitheater,” said Hayes. “They will give us estimates of the city’s responsibility for site work prior to construction, so we’ll be able to identify that in the coming weeks.
“As to any amounts beyond the Hengst Foundation funding, we don’t have any exposure to that today, and if we were to enter into an agreement to expand the project beyond the donation amount, we would come back to city council for that approval.”
