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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 04-01-1996 - IX-F 1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS Action Agenda Item No. /x-F 6f ld e j ) ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: April 1, 1996 SUBJECT: JAIUCOURTHOUSE PROJECT: REJECTION OF BIDS DEPARTMENT: PURCHASING AND Public Hearing: No CENTRAL SERVICES Budget Amendment Reqd? No ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: PAM JONES, ext. 2650 Jail/Courthouse Project Summary Telephone Number- Hillsborough 732-8181 Chapel Hill 967-9251 Mebane 227-2031 Durham 688-7331 PURPOSE: To reject all bids for the Jail/Courthouse project received on August 28, 1995; and to cease negotiations with Trafalgar House Construction for the construction of this project. BACKGROUND: We have received word through Grier-Fripp, the Architect for the Jail/ Courthouse project, that Trafalgar House Construction has withdrawn from negotiations to build the Jail/Courthouse Project. A summary of events leading up to the withdrawal is included as an attachment to this abstract. As a result of this action, the staff will pursue with the project Architect options which may be available to the County in constructing the Jail Addition and Courtroom. The options to be explored will include, but may not be limited to, rebidding the project. RECOMMENDATION: The Manager recommends that the Board reject all bids received on August 28, 1995 for the construction of the Jail/Courthouse Project. 2 JAIL/COURTHOUSE PROJECT SUMMARY APRIL 1, 1996 5/23/95. First call for bids. Fewer than three bidders per discipline (general, electrical, mechanical and plumbing) responded, therefore, no bids were accepted and the rebid date was set for June 8. 6/8/95 First rebid. In a rebid situation you may open bids regardless of the number of bids received. In this case, the multiple prime bids were as follows: three (3) electrical bids; two (2) mechanical bids; three (3) plumbing bids; and zero (0) general contractor bids. There was, however, one single prime general contract bid submitted in an amount of $3,944,684. Since the single prime bid constituted the only full set of bids received, if we had chosen to award, it would have been our only choice. Since the $3.9 million figure was our first, and to that point only frame of reference for the real bidding environment, it did not seem prudent to negotiate with the low bidder. The County rejected this set of bids on June 26, 1995. During the Summer, 1995 the County's staff and Architect explored options which would allow the project to be built in a manner that would meet the goals of the County to: • Get additional bedspace for the Jail as quickly as possible; and • Relieve the overcrowding in the Courts. Several sources were consulted regarding potential cost saving measures during this period of time. The second rebid for this project occurred on 8/28/95 with the following bidder results: One (1) Mufti-prime general contract bid One (1) Mufti-prime mechanical contract bid Two (2) Multi-prime electrical contract bids One (1) Multi-prime plumbing contract bid Two (2) Single-prime general contract bids The lowest bid was the single prime contract bid for$3,765,000 submitted by Trafalgar House Construction (THC). Since the two general contract bids did not exhibit an abnormally high spread between them, it served as an indicator to us that in light of the market it was unlikely that we could get bids better than these. It was therefore recommended to the Board at their regular meeting on September 5, 1995 that the County enter into negotiation with the low bidder. r , 3 The Architect subsequently went back to THC in an effort to determine what cost saving measure items could be pursued in order to bring the bid into closer alignment with the budget. Their collaboration with THC yielded the $3,408,642 figure which was recommended to the Board on September 5, 1995 as the bid award amount. However, the caveat offered during the Board meeting was that this amount included modifications to the roof of the Jail which had not been reviewed by the Historic District Commission and that as a result of final review and approval of the District Commission the bid award amount could change. Following the September 5 Board action the second approval process with the District Commission was begun at its next available meeting, September 20, 1995. Presentations were made at the following three Historic District Commission meetings and on October 18, 1995, the Commission approved a design which had further modifications to that which the Board had seen on September 5. Drawings and specifications were modified by the Architect to reflect the changes made to date and the information was forwarded to Trafalgar House Construction for its further cost analysis. Although these modifications eliminated some cost saving ideas which were unacceptable from an operational point of view, the significant modifications were to the roof design as required by the Historic District Commission. The resulting cost increase was$74,326 over the amount approved by the Board on 9/5/95. The contract amount which we were negotiating stood at $3,482,968. A meeting between Trafalgar House Construction and the Architect was held on January 10, 1996 for the purpose of bringing closure to the negotiation process with Trafalgar House, outlining areas of responsibility for the participants and developing a time line from which to move forward. Within a month of that meeting however, the principal decision maker for Trafalgar House and the individual with whom we had been negotiating left the company. This was the second time during the negotiations with Trafalgar House that the person operating as its primary decision maker had changed. While Trafalgar House continued to think it could build the project for the $3,482,968 figure, within a couple of weeks into the new manager's employment, there were signs that the upper management of Trafalgar House was not convinced that this could happen. Around 3/15/96 the Architect distributed a tentative schedule to Trafalgar House indicating a 3/25/96 deadline to get a final contract with the bond/insurance finalized drawings, specs, etc. to the County. (This schedule indicated that a pre-construction conference would be held on 3/27/96.) This deadline was not met by Trafalgar House. On March 28, 1996 the County was informed through its Architect that in a three hour conference call among various Trafalgar House officials, the Trafalgar House head office had instructed the manager of the RTP office to send us a letter withdrawing from negotiations to build at $3,4482,968.