MANTI— Fair goers at the Sanpete County Fairgrounds will have to deal with portable restrooms for another year after plans for a permanent building had to be put on hold when the county failed to receive any construction bids.
After years of inadequate restroom facilities at the fair- grounds, including primarily portable toilets for the past couple of years, a bid opening for a 51-stall restroom building was scheduled June 15. But no bids came in.
Sanpete County Commissioner Reed Hatch said he thinks the Richfield-based engineering firm, Savage Engineers, needed to provide better specifications to attract bids.
“A couple of contractors said they didn’t bid because they were waiting on better spec requirements,” such as toilets attached to the wall or floor, quality of toilets, and so on, Hatch said.
The original plan was to construct a facility that would incorporate expanded restrooms, a ticket booth and a concession stand. The price tag was around $750,000, which commissioners said was more than the county could afford.
So the county solicited another proposal and awarded the design contract to Savage.
Funding for the revised project came from the Amer- ican Rescue Plan Act, which allowed the county to commit $481,000 for construction.
Hatch said the new facility will be much larger than the existing one, which often has long wait times, especially for women.
The rule of thumb on restrooms is one seat per 125 people. The county figured on busy nights, it might host a crowd of up to 6,000. That translated to a need for the 51 stalls.
Savage went back to the drawing board and put together a more detailed plan in hopes of getting a couple of bids.
The county is advertising for bids again this week, in the Sanpete Messenger.
