By Debby Woodin

dwoodin@joplinglobe.com

Eleven proposals by seven developers to provide office space in Joplin to the state, most likely in a single building, were opened Wednesday in Jefferson City.

Representatives of the state’s Office of Administration opened bids that ranged from $709,164 to more than $1.4 million for providing the state with 60,000 square feet of office space.

Details, including the locations of the proposed space, were not included in the bids. Representatives of the state office will be in Joplin next week for meetings with the developers. Each developer will be given two hours to present the details, including the locations, of the space they propose to lease to the state.

A spokesman for the Office of Administration did not return a phone call seeking details on how the bidding would proceed and whether the presentations would be open to the public.

The proposals opened Wednesday contained only bid amounts and the names of the development companies submitting the bids, according to a tabulation sheet obtained from the Office of Administration.

The lowest bid submitted was for $709,164 from Gryphon Building LLC, a partnership that is restoring the former Independent Grocers Alliance and Bagcraft building at 1027 S. Main St.

“I think we prepared a very good, very competitive bid,” said Paul Whitehill, one of the partners in the redevelopment of the building, by telephone Wednesday as he traveled back to Joplin from the bid opening at the Truman Office Building in Jefferson City. “We’re happy with the package we submitted.”

Whitehill said the state will award the contract based on a points system, and that being the low bidder won his company 75 of the 100 points needed to win the contract. He said the group also wins five points for having a historic designation on the building in which it proposes to lease space for the state offices.

Whitehill had said earlier that losing the state contract would not jeopardize the building restoration project.

The city has offered $1 million and land it owns in the 800 and 900 blocks of Virginia Avenue to a developer who would clear that area and build a new state office building.

City Manager Mark Rohr said Wednesday that he believes one of the offers opened by the state Wednesday incorporates the city’s proposal. He said he believes a bid offered by Vogel Properties LLC, at $1,217,398, may be for a new building on Main Street.

He also confirmed that an emergency, closed meeting conducted last Friday by the Joplin City Council involved the Vogel proposal for a new building. “But I don’t want to get into it any further than that,” Rohr said.

The developer, Steve Vogel, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Rohr said city officials are not conducting any negotiations with the state. “We wouldn’t play a role in that at all,” he said of the presentations that the bidders are to make next week. “All we tried to do, as a city, is try to enhance the prospects of a new building being built in downtown.”

In addition to the $1.2 million bid, Vogel Properties submitted a second bid of $989,875 for another property.

Steve Smith, president of Joplin Construction Design and Management Inc., 610 S. Wall Ave., confirmed Wednesday that two bids were presented by his company. Smith Holdings LC presented bids of $738,000 and $722,130. Smith, contacted by telephone, declined to discuss the locations for his proposals or any other details.

Another bidder was Burly Inc., which proposed a deal for $856,906.50. Online records of the secretary of state’s office list Burly Inc. as registered to Neosho shopping center developer Randy Burleson. A message left on Burleson’s phone was not returned Wednesday.

Three of the bids were submitted by R. Bax LLC, a company that is registered in state records to Ray Bax, a property developer based in Eugene, Mo. Those proposals were for $933,140, $957,340 and $959,740.

Another bidder was DuWayne Eoff, listed in state records as a Springfield property developer. His bid was $1,190,304.

The highest bid, $1,447,876, was submitted by BC Development Co. LLC. State records list three developers using that name. They are based in Greenwood, St. Louis and Des Peres.





Proposed relocation



Offices that would occupy a consolidated office building under the state’s proposal would be the Department of Corrections’ Board of Probation and Parole, the Highway Patrol Troop D Service Center near Carthage, the Veterans Commission, the driver license testing bureau, the Department of Social Services, Vocational Rehabilitation, Child Support Enforcement, and others.