GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Green Cove Springs will be making some repairs to City Hall as well as finishing some items on the new Spring Park Pool that were not successfully completed during initial construction.

With two unanimous votes, members of the city council approved two purchase orders for completion of the Spring Park Pool punch list as well as repairs to the stucco trim on the City Hall building. The votes took place at the Council’s March 20 meeting.

The two items are considered critical with the unfinished parts of the pool serving as a public health risk and the damage to City Hall risking the deep penetration of water into the structure of the building. Because of the urgency of the items, the city elected to move forward with staff’s recommendations following an expedited bid process in the best interest of the city.

The council elected, following direction from Public Works Director Mike Null, to hire MAER Construction of Jacksonville for the pool finishing work in a not-to-exceed amount of $53,587. MAER will complete the four most important items on the punch list that were not completed when the city parted ways with pool contractor CORE Construction out of Jacksonville, with whom the city is now in litigation.

“The quote that they provided basically calls for repairs to the four major items on the punch list,” Null said. “But they have told us over the phone that it incorporates most of the smaller items that were on the list as well.”

Those four items include reworking the rock outfall that never quite made it to the standards set by the architects who designed the original project and had started to wash out. Also left unfinished is some work on two sets of stairs that need to be fixed, and the replacement of some plastic stripping that runs along the sections of concrete on the pool deck. The last item, which is probably the biggest concern, is levelling the bathrooms at the pool which held water during last year’s shortened operation schedule.

“The two main bathrooms hold a considerable amount of water,” Null said. “The lifeguards spent a lot of time squeegeeing water out of the bathrooms just to try and help prevent some slip and falls.”

Members of the council agreed that this is something that needs addressing immediately and didn’t raise any concerns with the process or cost of the repairs. Vice Mayor Connie Butler, who was present via teleconference, asked Null for a timeline for the construction, which Null said they do not know yet for certain but that they expect it will be completed by the pool’s opening on the first weekend in May.

Council then moved on to the stucco repairs, which had the same urgency and saw full support from council from the start.

“This came to our attention in the weeks and months after Hurricane Irma as we had folks out looking at the building and they all started to notice the stucco trim was starting to crack and separate,” Null said. “That’s where you can very quickly have issues with water intrusion which can lead to much more damage.”

He said that the people who had noticed the issue, all insurance appraisers and government representatives, advised that they fix the problem before it got any worse.

City staff recommended a bid that came in from SNK Drywall LLC of Jacksonville after receiving three almost identical bids for the work. Null saidt the company would repair all of the cracks and separation in the styrofoam and stucco trim, as well as completely repaint City Hall for the budgeted amount of $59,275.

In addition to these two items, the city has also started making some improvements in their parks in the form of new signage. After several comments from a member of the community, City Manager Danielle Judd asked for council direction on the idea that they would ban smoking and tobacco use in Spring Park. Though the council said they would not support a smoking ban, they did approve signs that suggest people keep their tobacco use away from the children’s area of the park.

Those signs have started to come through, and the first was installed Tuesday, according to Assistant Public Works Director Steve Thomas in addition to replacing a sign at the spring boil that was placed last week that lists the mineral contents of the water, the depth of the boil and temperature of the water in the boil.

“We’re actually going to install a couple more,” Thomas said. “There will be one more at this park, a couple at the top lot and a couple at Vera Francis Hall Park.”