Cape May Rejects All Bids for Convention Hall

CAPE MAY — City Council rejected all 11 bids submitted by construction companies March 30 to construct a new Convention Hall here. All exceeded the $10.5-million bond approved by voters in 2008.
Mayor Edward J. Mahaney Jr. told the Herald the city reserves the right to revisit the specifications and designs for Convention Hall to make any adjustments.
“Our purpose is to provide some additional clarity in the specs and designs for the benefit of the general contractors who were bidding,” he said.
The mayor said it appeared there were some areas in which bidding contractors may have inserted additional costs based on their uncertainty to specifically what needed to be accomplished.
“It’s a matter of clarification and some adjustments on our part as we’ve learned from the contractors which are the costliest and most difficult aspects of the construction project to undertake,” said Mahaney.
The ball is more in the court of the contractors to come in with lower bids at this point, he said. The remainder of April will be used by the city to refine the bid documents and after April 30, go out to bid once again with a two week period for submission of bids, said Mahaney.
He said he did not anticipate any new bidders and the city would specify changes in the bid specifications to keep turn around time at a minimum.
It remains to be determined if another round of bidding will delay construction and ultimately the opening of the hall which was projected for Memorial Day 2011. Mahaney said the city was seeking to have the convention hall open next summer.
The city has the option to scale back the facility but Mahaney said the city “did not want to remove significant elements from the building at this time.”
The bid specifications for a new Convention Hall contained 16 alternatives, items the city would like to have as features of the new facility but not considered an absolute necessity.
Each bidder submitted different figures for all the alternative items which must be considered along with the price quotes to construct a basic building, change the Promenade to accommodate the hall’s location closer to Beach Avenue and to install geothermal heating and cooling.
Bids for the basic building ranged from $10.8 million to $12.1 million. Promenade reconstruction bids ranged from $300,000 to $1 million. Geothermal system bids ranged from $381,000 to $1.1 million.
The basic building, Promenade reconstruction and geothermal installation came as package deals. As an example: Domus Construction bid $10.1 million to construct the basic building, $700,000 for the Promenade and $800,000 for geothermal installation for a grand total of $11.6 million not including the 16 alternatives for the building.
Network Construction offered a bid of $12.1 million for the basic building, $579,000 for the Promenade and $758,000 for the geothermal system for a total of $13.4 again not including the 16 alternatives.
Bids combining the basic building, Promenade and geothermal system ranged from $11.6 million from Domus Construction to $13.2 million from Adams Bickels and Associates. Four bids were made in the $12.4 to $12.6 range.