A special City of Powell River council meeting has been called to consider awarding the construction oversight services contract for the consolidated wastewater treatment plant to Associated Engineering (AE) for an amount up to $4,333,994.
The meeting will be held on July 30.
Associated Engineering is the firm undertaking design work for the liquid waste treatment plant.
At the July 23 finance committee meeting, manager of engineering services Nagi Rizk outlined the prospective contract. He said he had written a report and attached to it was a proposal from Associated Engineering to oversee construction of the wastewater treatment plant.
“I’m asking you kindly to approve the $4,333,994 as the construction services fee to oversee the construction,” said Rizk.
He said this was a sole-source contract.
In his report to council, Rizk stated the city could consider pursuing further pricing from other engineering consulting firms that may or may not yield lower fee proposals and cost savings.
“At this time, this process may create scheduling challenges, and although it may yield some apparent cost savings, we believe these cost savings will not materialize,” stated Rizk. “If selected, the lowest bidder, other than AE, would require time and effort to become familiar with the design and sufficiently comfortable to take on professional responsibility in overseeing the construction and certifying the constructed plant and conveyance.”
Rizk stated there is an inherent risk to the city and consultant if this option is selected.
In terms of the design phase, Rizk said it was at 95 per cent, or maybe more.
“They (AE) have an extreme, in-depth knowledge of this project,” said Rizk. “These are the reasons I would like to sole source.”
Rizk said AE’s professional fee started at $5.6 million and it was negotiated down to $4.3 million. Rizk said in trying to determine if it was a reasonable amount, he did some research. He said a similar project on Vancouver Island was about the same size as Powell River’s and consultant fees were $5.4 million and $4.4 million on the design. Typically, these components are about 10 per cent of the project cost, according to Rizk.
“We are less than that,” said Rizk. “We are $3.7 million currently for the design fees and if we proceed with this proposal at $4.3 million, we will be at $8 million.”
Rizk said that amounts to 10 per cent on an $80 million project.
“I’m comfortable asking for your approval on this,” said Rizk.
Mayor Dave Formosa said he wanted to thank Rizk for his hard work and coordination with this project.
“I thoroughly support this request,” said Formosa. “I’ll remember forever the day you enthusiastically bumped into me on the stairway and said, ‘Mr. Mayor, we just saved $1.2 million.’ I said ‘how did you do that’ and you said, ‘the request was $5.6 million and I’ve been in that room all day and we got them to agree to $4.3 million.’
“Nagi negotiated like a good car salesman and he took that project down by $1.2 million. He was very happy that day and proud, and I want to thank him on behalf of the residents and council.”
Councillor Cindy Elliott said it makes sense to sole source the contract. She said she is a big believer in going with the team the city has a relationship with, which can save a lot of money.
Finance committee chair George Doubt said when reading through the report he was happy to see the list of environmental monitoring, which goes on two years past the end of construction.
“We’ve had questions at a previous council meeting about environmental monitoring and permitting, et cetera,” said Doubt. “You can see the depth of work that’s going on for protecting the environment.”
He thanked Rizk for working so hard to save taxpayers money.
Chief administrative officer Russell Brewer suggested council call a special meeting, rather than setting the matter over until its next meeting on August 20. Council voted to do so.
