Bids were opened on Tuesday for construction of the new liquor store, which will merge the current Kannapolis and China Grove stores.

The total cost of construction, based on the low bids, appears to be nearly $400,000. The new store will rise across the highway from the current location at 1903 N. Cannon Blvd.

Although the county board received lots of bids, the total price tag is higher than anticipated. An identical store was built on Salisbury’s Jake Alexander Boulevard in 1993 for $223,000.

Workers must haul in a large amount of soil to prepare the site, a major factor in the increased cost, according to Linda Lowman, manager of the county ABC stores. The ABC Board will meet Friday at 7:30 a.m. at 510 N. Lee St. to consider the bids and award contracts.

Snipes & Associates of Salisbury is the apparent low bidder for the general contract, with a base bid of $316,100. The board got seven bids, the highest nearly $480,000.

The ABC board sought both multi-prime bids, which use a general contractor and other contractors for heating, plumbing and other parts of the job, and single-prime bids, where one contractor does the entire job.

Snipes also had the lowest single-prime bid of $394,600.

The total of the general contract and the other contracts for mechanical, electric and plumbing is apparently slightly cheaper than the lowest single-prime bid.

Lowman said the total of the low bids appears to be around $390,017.

In March, the Alcohol Beverage Control Board bought seventh-tenths of an acre from Howard V. Wyrick of Kannapolis for $60,000.

The ABC board decided to merge the China Grove and Kannapolis stores as an economy move. One of the county’s top volume stores, the Kannapolis store already needed additional space. The current ABC store is one of three occupants of a building that shares limited parking spaces.