Kent city officials expect to award a contract in January to a company to replace the deteriorating Lake Meridian swimming and fishing floating dock.

The City Council on Tuesday approved an agreement with the state Recreation and Conservation Office to combine two grants of $500,000 each to the city into one contract of $1 million toward the $1.7 million project at Lake Meridian Park.

“We’re hoping to enter into a contract with low bidder next month,” said Hope Gibson, city parks planner, in a Dec. 6 report to the council’s Operations Committee.

Companies had until Wednesday to submit bids. Gibson said the project is expected to be completed in June.

“It seems like a lot of money – a million dollars,” Councilman Les Thomas said prior to his vote to approve the agreement at the committee meeting.

The project will allow the city to replace the existing dock that was built in 1985 and provide 640 linear feet of water access to park users, according to state documents. The primary recreation opportunity provided by the project will be for swimming, fishing, non-motorized boating access and walking.

Crews will demolish and remove the existing floating dock as well as fabricate and install a new dock. Several floats on the dock are listing and some of the pilings anchoring the floats are loose, according to city parks staff.

Councilwoman Dana Ralph asked Gibson if getting permits for the project might be complicated because it is on a lake. But Gibson answered the permitting process won’t be complicated because the city will use the same footprint to replace the dock.

Kent received one of the grants through the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program and the other grant through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The city will cover the remaining $700,000 of the project. The council last year approved a 2016 budget adjustment proposed by Mayor Suzette Cooke to fund at that time the remaining $1.2 million of the project cost from 2008 bond proceeds originally intended to build a new East Hill maintenance facility that city officials later abandoned.

City staff first sought funds for the deteriorating dock at Lake Meridian as part of the repairs planned if voters passed a six-year street/parks levy in 2012 to increase property taxes. Voters turned down that $29 million measure ($18 million for parks, $11 million for streets) and city staff began to look elsewhere to fund park projects and street repairs. City staff applied for the grants.

King County built the dock in 1985 before the city annexed the Lake Meridian area.