The Spam Museum is officially ready to complete exterior construction and landscaping after the Austin City Council awarded two bids for concrete and landscaping work Monday night.

Concrete work includes sidewalk, benches, bike racks, trash bins, seating and gathering spaces.

The Joseph Company Inc. of Austin was awarded the low bid for $117,376 and an alternate cost of $13,735.

The landscaping bid was awarded to Berg’s Nursery and Landscape LLC for $27,581.12 and two alternate costs of $8,722.75 and $10,921.66.

Landscaping will include patio pavers, mulch, trees, bushes, flowers and grasses.

The projects are funded by a $224,295 Hormel Foundation grant.

“When you add up all of those costs, we have a total cost of $210,735, which is below what we currently have in place with the Hormel Foundation grant,” Public Works Director Steven Lang said.

Lang said they had alternate choices for some details in case bids that came in too high again, which happened last fall. To avoid the same happening again, they split the project into two bids and then included the alternate.

Lang said they worked with the landscape architect to provide more detail, which usually means less questions for the contractor and relates to better costs.

The other bid for the concrete work came from Pember Companies Inc. with a base bid $159,485 and alternate cost of $12,320.

The museum will open April 22.