They actually managed to get in under the wire. The lowest bid is below the $5.8 million that was allocated.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON August 29, 2011 – The city publicly opened four tender bids for the completion of the Brant Street Pier last Friday. Here is what the bids said:

BOT Construction Group (Oakville)- wants $10,503,350.00 to complete the pier. The “thanks but no thanks” letter should have been in the mail the same day.

Graham Infrastructure (Mississauga) a JV – $6,429,700.00 – that JV means it’s a joint venture with several different groups involved – that will require a much closer look on the part of the team reviewing the bids. This one however is the lowest number.

Rankin Construction, St. Catharines wants $6,714,234.00 to complete the pier.;

Zenith Contracting wants $6,703,160.00 to complete the pier.

Now some might look askance at those numbers and point out that the three in the $6 million range are above the $5.8 million council allocated for the job – and so Council should do what they said they would do if the bids were too high – take the pier down and return all the grant money the city was given.

But those numbers aren’t as high as they appear to be. Here’s why.

The bids had to include 13% HST – so the price you see INCLUDES the HST – and while you may not have known this – municipalities pay just 1.76% HST.

So let’s look at those numbers again. We will exclude the greedy little outfit in Oakville that wanted $10.5 million and focus on the three that came in at just over $6 million and do the same calculation for each one.

Here is the calculation.

We take out 13% of the price in the bid and then add back in 1.76% of the new number.

And that gets us the following

Graham    $5,692,290.57 or $107,709.43 under the allocated amount.

Rankin        $5,944,191.93 or $144,191.93 over the allocated amount.

Zenith        $5,934,387.99 or $134,387.99 over the allocated amount

On a. purely price basis these are very good numbers for the city. But then so were the Harm Schilthuis and Sons Ltd numbers during the first bidding round – remember, they were the lowest bidder back then. So the lowest price isn’t necessarily the best price. Burlington certainly now knows that.

The city changed its mind about the use of the trestle that belonged to a sub-contractor of HSS, the original contractor hired to build the pier.

The city changed its mind about the use of the trestle that belonged to a sub-contractor of HSS, the original contractor hired to build the pier.

When the bids came in for the original contract to build the pier current Director of Engineering, Tom Eichenbaum said the contractors that submitted bids were not given much more than a cursory review. The city didn’t make that mistake this time. The city hired Morrison Hershfield  to prepare a tender for a new contractor to complete the Brant Street Pier and also bought in project management firm METTKO in April 2011. Procurement consultant Cassels Brock was hired to help prepare a tender package.

There was a bit of a kafuffle over the uses of the trestle that belonged to a sub-contractor who just wanted to be paid or at least get his trestle back. That mater got messy but the Mayor stepped in and that problem got put to bed.

The funds to pay for what the city now calls “phase two” of the pier construction will come from the city’s capital purpose reserve fund

The plans that were included in the tender had significant changes that might create some legal problems for the city but that’s a different kettle of fish that will get dealt with later – and you just know that it will come back to bite us.

What one wonders is why the city didn’t give the public all the details – this is a good news story folks. But based on the news release the city put out, every one of the bidders was over the allocated amount of $5.8 million.

Now of course “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings” but the fat lady has a song sheet in her hands and she can read music – so Mayor Rick Goldring may have more than hit the nail on head when he said he looked forward to the opening of the Sound of Music Festival in 2013 taking place on the Pier with the Burlington Teen Tour Band marching out onto the deck playing a rousing piece of marching music.

Of the seven contractors that had been pre-qualified to submit a bid – just four actually submitted a document. There was at least one on that list that is seen as the best in the business and quite why they didn’t submit a bit makes one wonder.

Scott Stewart, General Manager Community Services Department, leads the staff group that has stick handled this project to the point where the city now has at least three bids that on the surface look pretty good.  The details will get a thorough scouring from Stewart who is a no nonsense kind of guy.  He came to Burlington from Hamilton.

Scott Stewart, General Manager Community Services Department, leads the staff group that has stick handled this project to the point where the city now has at least three bids that on the surface look pretty good. The details will get a thorough scouring from Stewart who is a no nonsense kind of guy. He came to Burlington from Hamilton.

The bids are now in the hands of a group that consists of at least Scott Stewart, General Manager Community Services; city engineer Tom Eichenbaum and Craig Stevens, Project Manager, Corporate Strategic Initiatives This group will review the bids and look at any of the provisional items that are in the document and then rank them and take their report and recommendation to the Community Development Committee on September 14th.

Everyone that counts within city hall will have had numerous discussions on which contractor the city should go with and the decision will probably have been made, at least in the minds of most, before the committee meets. There will of course be debate and discussion and there might be some surprises from any delegations that register to speak – but on balance – it looks as if the city has moved one more significant step towards getting the construction of the pier back on track.

A city hall source who was not authorized to speak said the bids were “good news with 3 very close and within expectation”.

Why did we expect them all to be over the allocated amount of $5.8 million ?

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