Commissioners unanimously approved a bid and construction agreement at their Oct. 15 meeting to repair the Williamson County Justice Center parking garage.

Restek Inc., a concrete restoration company from Austin, was found to be the "lowest responsible bidder" for the repairs by the commissioners court and a technical committee tasked to review bids.

Bidders were required to include information about the individuals who would be assigned to the parking garage repair project. Because Dallas-based concrete repair company Southwest Construction Services, which submitted a bid of $412,000, did not include the information to the committee's standards, Restek Inc., which submitted a $570,495 bid, was awarded the contract.

"This is not in any way, shape or form, the standard contract for Williamson County," said Robert Daigh, senior director of infrastructure for the county.

"The technical committee that worked on this project made a conscious decision to include in its evaluation process a series of questions that would provide information that would guarantee the firm selected would be appropriate to do the work," Daigh said. "Because of our experience on many, many projects, we also know it's important to not only have a good firm, but have the boots on [the] ground on our project be qualified."

The parking garage has been closed since 2011, when cracks were discovered in the structure. Jose I. Guerra Inc. evaluated the damage and determined the county will need to make repairs and reinforce several aspects of the facility.

Daigh has previously said repairs could possibly be completed within six months of the bid being awarded.