The good news is that the they got five bids. But the bad news is that Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board staff had to reject all of them recently because they were far over the estimated cost and budget.

So you can add Triangle Park play area near the southwest corner of Lake Nokomis to the list of metro-area park projects delayed by the overheated construction market in the Twin Cities area. The lowest bid came in 39 percent over the $414,000 estimated cost of the work, according to Adam Arvidson, project manager.

It's just the latest casualty of the torrid construction market that has wreaked havoc with a variety of civic projects ranging from parks to streets, as detailed in a recent Star Tribune article.

The difficulty in attracting favorable bids has been attributed to several large construction projects such as the new Vikings and Saints stadia and the mall of American expansion, a crush of projects deferred from the recession, a shortage of construction workers, and a shortage of cement.

Park officials hope to rebid the project in January, when more workers are idle and contractors are lining up work for the 2015 season. The work involves replacing substandard playground equipment for tots. The Metro Council-funded project is the first wave in a larger renovation of Nokomis-Hiawatha Regional Park planned over the next two and one-half years.

But it's far from the only parks project affected by the poor bidding situation. Some work has been pushed back for another round of bidding, while other projects have been pared in scope, according to Cliff Swenson, a manager of design for park projects.

Swenson offered other examples. Park officials a few months ago pulled back from bidding a project for trail work on Ridgeway Parkway based on contacts with bidders. Trail work at Bryn Mawr Meadows came in high all three times it was bid, so the scope of work was trimmed. Knowing the bidding climate, park officials trimmed the scope of the work for renovating W. River Parkway trails based on priorities set by an advisory committee.

Swenson said that constractors may shy away because of the Park Board's participation in civil rights efforts that set goals for using women-owned and minority-owned subcontractors and hiring minority workers.

Swenson said the Park Board is trying to sharpen competition among contractors by contacting them to encourage them to bid, especially if it's work the contractor has handled before.

"We really have to do a good job of selling a project," he said.