Northern Boom , Causing Bid Bust for City?
Prince George, B.C.- Why are projects put to tender by the City of Prince George coming back with few bids, and prices well over the estimates?
Last night, Council was advised that the 4th Avenue conversion project bid was well over budget. The proposed budget was $400 thousand, and the bid came in over the $900 thousand dollar mark. The City will have to use all of the Local Area Srervice fund, plus the Green City Award Fund of $108 thousand the City won in 2008, and $25 thousand in operational street lighting and traffic signal improvements to make up the shortfall.
Superintendant of Operations, Bill Gaal says it was not the only bid to come in over budget "The bid for the Civic Plaza renovation, one came in 33% over budget and the other was 50% over budget. That project ended up being retendered. We've seen this project with 4th Avenue where we only had one bidder, and an irrigation project on Connaught Hill we had no bidders, and some electric drives in PW605, one of our main pumping stations, just one bidder, I think it was 10% over budget."
So what's happening? Why the lack of interest in bidding on municipal projects?
There is no definititve answer but plenty of speculation.
One theory is that there is too much time between the approval of a project and it being put out to tender. In some cases a year lag time can add up the dollars. Another theory is that the resource boom in the north is keeping contractors very busy on projects of a much larger scale. The bigger the project, the better the opportunity for increased profit. It is always more economical to buy large quantities of materials for a project, making the big projects more attractive.
The bottom line is that the taxpayer in Prince George is getting less for the dollars they are spending. In the case of the Civic Plaza project, it has been scaled back some, and with the 4th Avenue project, it will mean a depletion of the LAS fund.
City Manager Beth James has advised Council there will be discussion on how future estimates are developed, that a special premium will have to be built into the process to ensure the budgets are in line with the reality of the bids.
Comments
Well the answer to this is pretty simple. The City has been told numerous times about their tendering incompetence to the point now where bidders have lost interest. Why try to fix a broken wheel when everybody refuses to believe or understand that it is broken ?
V.
Maybe no one wants to deal with the pinheads and bureaucrats from city hall?
And as for the taxpayer getting less for their money on projects like the civic center here’s a news flash for the city. None of us wanted you to waste our money on it in the first place!
Maybe everyone thinks that the city is full of ineptitude making them easy marks to overcharge!
Everyone looks for tax breaks. The airlines were given subsidies on flights. Pretty simple really.
Economics of supply and demand working well (not. For the tax payers).
Things have change in the city after they squeezed Scott Bone out of Purchasing.
When the city can not budget a project properly. The contractors don’t want to waste their time and money bidding on a job that will not go ahead.
When the bubble bursts and all these contractors have nothing to do, they would walk across 10 KM of broken glass to have a shot at bidding on city work. It’s too easy to blame the city for not getting more interest in their bids. The big players are busy building the new Rome so this pea shooter job isn’t worth doing.
The sky is not going to fall if these projects are put on hold for now as they are unfortunately way over budget. The Civic Plaza is fine the way it is, 4th Avenue is fine the way it is except for the atrociously deteriorated pavement.
Just pave it and paint some lines on it, which reminds me: What’s up with the city- wide lane line painting efforts?
Just relax! You underestimated the costs, now show some respect for the taxpayers’ money and shelve the ideas!
No harm done, yet!
Hopefully if they do redo 4th avenue they pick a style of lamp standard and fixture used elsewhere in downtown. Third ave is different from George Street which is different than the gateway. Having multiple styles takes away from any continuity in the space and forces the city parts department to keep on hand, in this case, three times the number of spare components.
PrinceGeorge, I think the idea of shelving the project is a good idea on fourth avenue. The contractors are bit too busy and do they want to do a job like that, interfacing with public. Its not a easy job, so if the contractors are busy, they will bid it accordingly.
Too bad all the brains in city hall could not figure this out. Its a tough job, should have been out to bid in January, and they would have gotten four competitive prices.
PGGuy, not all the contractors are working on the new Rome.
Fourth Avenue was not a easy job, interfacing with the public. Too bad the city was not in tune with what the contractors are doing….. School District usually up to date, and they talk to the contractors to get a feel of the market place.
As I said in the other thread, this is a completely needless project. But no, it looks like they’re going to pay more than twice as much as the inital estimate to force it through.
They should scrap the civic plaza project, and 4th Avenue project.
Neither are needed, and they are costing us a bundle.
Time for the City to start to save (not spend) money. In other words. Time for them to grow up and become responsible citizens.
The gravy train needs to take a few years off for reconditioning.
They have to fix 4th for their license plate scanning system!
No they don’t. License plates can be still be scanned when cars are parallel parked.
They’ll hae more problems with snow covered license plates, not the position of the car.
“They should scrap the civic plaza project, and 4th Avenue project.
Neither are needed, and they are costing us a bundle”
==================================
I agree Palopu. If you are looking to trim costs, these would certainly be two that aren’t NEEDED.
It could even be debated if they fall into the “nice to have” category, LOL. There are likely many others that would bump those on that list.
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