NORFOLK, Neb. -- A bid to add new features to a city park was rejected Monday, due to the project's price tag.

Norfolk City Council rejected the bid Monday, stating the project was over the engineer's estimations. Only one construction company offered a bid, restricting options for the city.

According to City Engineer Steve Rames, the bid price was $5,760,819 from Hausmann Construction, while engineer estimations were $3,460,000. He explained the scope of their redevelopment plan was too big for some contractors to comfortably take on.

However, Rames said by breaking up the plan into smaller projects, these same contractors were more willing to place a bid.

"We had nine prime bidders listed as plan holders during the bid process," Rames said. "Following up with some of them after the bid process, they just felt it was a lot of components in there that didn't fit one particular contractor real well. We're very confident that going out with individual bid packages that are more trade specific will keep the cost much closer to what we've projected for this project."

Rames projected the overall price of renovations will be around $4.2 million based on the bids made by Hausmann Construction after breaking up the project.

The rejection of the bid was passed in a 7-1 vote, with Councilman Corey Granquist voting in opposition. Although this may have been a mistake. After the vote, Granquist said "My bad" while chuckling.

Five smaller Johnson Park project packages were approved for bids unanimously by the council.