12. Bids Sports Court/Tennis Lighting UpgradeCUPERTIN~
PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT
Summary
AGENDA ITEM ~ ~-
AGENDA DATE October 7, 2008
SUBJECT AND ISSUE
Reject all bids received for the Sports Court/Tennis Lighting Upgrade Project at the
Sports Center and authorize the Public Works Director to re-bid the project. without the
restroom component or the tennis light upgrade. .
BACKGROUND
Report of Bids Received
On October 25, 2008 the city received bids from three contractors for this project. All
bids exceeded the Engineer's Estimate as follows:
Bidder Base Bid Difference
ESR Construction
ICC Contractors, Tnc.
Robert A. Bothman,Inc
Engineer's Estimate
$ 844,000.00 5$%
$ 842,000.00 57%
$ 736,472.00 37%
$ 535,500.00
The bids are well above the engineer's estimate and the project total including the law
bid exceeds the project budget by a significant amount. Staff and the City's design
consultant discussed the bids and unit costs with representatives of all three bidders.
There seemed to be two main issues that caused the deviation from the estimate.
First of all, all the bidders indicated that while each of the project tasks are not especially
difficult, the combination and the very tight site constraints, along with the requirement
to maintain full operation capacity in the tennis courts, and with the resulting need to
maintain a clean operation on adjacent courts and walkways, added considerable
difficulty and cost to the construction. Additionally, the cost of the restrooms was
considerably higher than expected.
To a lesser extent, the uncertainty around the highly volatile credit markets, upon which
many contractors depend for cash flow during construction, caused them to increase their
bids to hedge against this uncertainly.
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The Project Budget as contained in the adopted FY 2008-2009 Capital Improvement
Program is the following:
420-9236 Tennis Court Lighting $ 250,000
570-9231 Sports Court and Pool Demo 500,000
Total Combined Project $ 750,000
The total current costs estimated for the project are as follows:
Engineering Services $ 133,500
Construction 536,500
Construction Contingency 80.000
Total Combined Project $ 750,000
However, if the project were to proceed with the award to the low bidder, Robert A.
Bothman, Inc. the project costs would be as follows:
Engineering Services $ 133,500
Construction (Bothman Low Bid) 737,000
Construction Contingency (15%) 110,000
Total Combined Project $ 980,500
To proceed with the project under this scenario would require the appropriation of an
additional $230,500 to fully fund the project costs.
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION ALTERNATIVES
i .Increase the Budget -Award Contract to Low Bidder
This approach would be to take advantage of the bids received and maintain the project
schedule. However, it would also require an increase in the project budget by an
appropriation of $230,500 from the General Fund ~ Reserve or other source not yet
identif ed.
2. Reiect all bids -Redesign to current budget -Rebid the Project
The two major items of cost increase in the bids is the addition of two- restrooms at the
sports court and a higher than expected cost for the tennis lighting upgrade. In the current
low bid, these items represent a cost of over $200,000. The restrooms are not required by
code but were included in the project as a convenience. While perhaps less convenient,
there are ample restroom facilities in the adjacent Sports Center building. The 12 tennis
courts scheduled for the lighting upgrade are already lighted, but at a recreational instead
of a competition level.
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Under this alternative, Staff would propose to remove the restrooms from the scope of the
project and re-bid it in November 2008. This, along with some other minor adjustments
relating to schedule, should result in a bid that would be less than Alternative 1 but still
not within the current budget. -
The only difficulty with this approach would be that the delay in. re-bidding the project
under his scenario could create conflicts with the Tennis Court Lighting portion .since the
heavy usage of the tennis courts occurs from March to November. Some very careful
coordination conditions would need to be included in the re-bid package and the
cooperation of the tennis club operator and patrons would be essential to ensure a timely
and cost effective completion.
3 R~ect all Bids -Defer Tennis Lighting - Re-bid Sports Court without Bathrooms
This alternative would allow the Sports Court and Pool Demo portion of the project to
proceed without alteration for well under the $750,000 budget as the sports court is not
time sensitive to customer usage and to defer the Tennis Lighting to FY 2009-2010 whew
it was originally budgeted
However, in the interim, this project would include changing out all the lamps for more
energy efficient lamps and either cleaning or replacing the lenses on the lamps which will
provide some improvement in the lighting, though not to a competitive standard as
originally proposed.
However, the tennis community, who have been anticipating that this lighting work
would be completed this fiscal year will be disappointed and will face the uncertainty of a
budget decision in June as to whether the project will proceed at all.
The Tennis Court Lighting project, if bid separately following the June budget decisions,
would require a budget allocation of at least $450,000 at that time to proceed with
construction, due to the increased cost identified by the low bid as well as redesign and
escalation or other unknowns.
The following Table is a comparison of the cost implications of each alternative:
Alt No. 1
Low Bid Alt. No. 2
no bathrooms
w/li it upgrade Alt. No 3
no bathrooms
Lamy changes
Engr. Svcs , $ 133,500 $ 145,000 $ 145,000
Construction 737,000 550,000 340,400
Contingency 110 000 85,000 55,000
Total $ 980,500 ~ $ 780,000 $ 540,000
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CONCLUSION
When all the above options are considered with their respective pros and cons, Staff
believes that the most prudent course of action would be to pursue the project under
alternative number 3, i.e., reject all bids, redo the bid package without the restrooms or
the tennis light upgrade but include change-out of lamps to energy efficient lamps and re-
bid the projec# in November 2Q08.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION
Reject all bids received for the Sports Court/Tennis Lighting Upgrade Project at the
Sports Center and authorize the Public Works Director to re-bid the project without the
restroom component or the tennis light upgrade.
Submitted by:
`72..,~ (:~-mil
R.a1ph A: Qualls, Jr.
Director of Public Works
Approved for submission:
David W. Knapp
City Manager
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EXHIBITS
BEGIN
HERE
T-lea-n #~ l ~-
CC Ie~?l0~
Cupertino Tennis Club
October 3, 2008
Edward Hirshfield
Cupertino City Council
Attention:
Dolly Sandoval,
Omn Mahoney
Kris Wang
Gilbert Wong
Mark Santoro
Subject:
Sports Court/Lighting Upgrade Project, Agenda Item 12 for October 7, 2008
Honorable City Council Members,
We, the Cupertino Tennis Club have reviewed the Staff Report created by the Publics
Works Department and offer the following comments:
1. We thank the Public Works Department, Parks and Recreation Department and
the City Council for all the hard work committed to the project up to this point.
2. We would be happy if the city could find its way clear to fund the project as
proposed. But, if not:
3. It is not surprising that the bids came: in over the budget estimate because that
estimate was made 3 years ago and there has been, significant inflation of
construction costs since the intervening time.
4. We do not agree that the best course of action for the city is a complete re-bid of
the subject project because:
a: According to the public Works department, a complete re-bid could take
an undisclosed number of months, and in that time costs could perhaps
escalate to erase any saving=~ resulting from re-bidding.
b. Re-bidding could also delay the project into the new fiscal year and we
fear that unforeseen events could delay or completely remove the project
from the City's agenda
5. We do agree that removing the rest room would not decrease value of the project
to the city.
6. We note, not doing anything cause; the court lighting to remain significantly
below the standard for recreational play set by the USTA. This is a health and
safety hazard; especially to senior citizens like myself and many other Sports
Center members. Leaving the court lighting unimproved is not good.
7. We believe that Public Works should ask the bidders fora "Best and Final offer"
and be allotted 1 week to:
a. Redline the current version of the specification and Statement of Work to
delete the rest rooms and a~lother week to obtain these best and final offers
against that redlined specification. This is common practice in U.S.
Government contracting.
b. The amendments could be detailed as follows:
---- i. Remove-the-lRestr-ooms. --
ii. Frontload the payment schedule to prevent cost escalation due to
unlciiown interest expense by the contractor selected.
iii. Remove or amend the requirement to keep more than 6 courts open
during reconstruction. (The Tennis Club will work with the Parks
and Recreation department to define a court availability solution
that works best for League play, the need of the general CSC
membership, and the contractor.)
3. We do not tlunk that any of the other alternatives offered make sense. There are
hundreds of advocates within the community for improved lighting as we have
testified many times in the past. Removing and replacing the pool with a general
purpose court may be perceived as necessary to eliminate an eyesore and utilize
city property more effectively. The priority, however, is clearly to renovate the
lights.
9. Notwithstanding all of the above, we strongly advocate. that the "Add Alternate
#1" already in the RFP because it is necessary to bring the lighting to the standard
Parks and Recreation and Public Works agreed on at the beguuung of the project.
The USTA defines lighting as "Excellent," "Very Good", "Good" and "Fair".The
basic RFP calls for Standards close to "Good", but Parks and Recreation
requested "Very Good" which is close to the "Add Alternate #1"performance. If
we are going to do this project, «~e should do it right. The ~$26K additional cost
is not large compared to the cost of the entire project; and it is important.
So, we strongly support the city and hope that the Sorts Center Court/Tennis Lighting
project proceeds now. We think delay is dangerous to the eventual outcome and hope
that the Council can find the ftu~ds and the way to make it work.
Edward Hirshfield
Conununity Relations
Cupertino Teimis Club
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Greene
From: Terry Greene
Sent: - Monday, October 06, 2008 11:56 f~M
To: Mark Linder -
Cc: cGarthy; Carme aught Sammy Fernandez (sfernand@amceinc.com); Ralph Qualls
Subject: Hirshfield letter 10.3.08
Hirshfield Itr
0.3,08 to Coun.
Mark, the following is a point by point resp~~nse to Mr. Hirshfield's letter (attached) to the City
Council regarding the Tennis Court Lighting project on the October 7th agenda. I notice that you did not
receive a copy of his letter so I've attached it as a pdf for your review.
1. Mr. Hirshfield says the "estimate was made 3 years ago"... He is blatantly incorrect. The CIP,
adopted by Council in June 2006, authorized $50,000 for design fn FY 06/07 and $200,000 for
construction in FY 08/09. During the FY 07/08 CIP di~:cussions, Council agreed to move the $200,000 up
to FY 07/08 with Ralph's encouragement.
An estimate of $190,000 for construction, without tf~e Add Alternate, was prepared by the design
consultant in July 2008. The PW "budget" for construction was $185,000 and deemed sufficiently close for
the purposes of bidding.
2. Public Works can re-bid the combined projects after minor changes to the bid documents. The
project must be advertised for 30 calendar days to comply with the Public Contract Code due to its value.
It is estimated that new bids could be opened on December 4th and considered by Council on December
16th. If the meeting on December 16th is cancelled, as is often the case, the next available date would
be January 6th.
3. Re-bidding the project as outlined with the alternatives presented in the Staff Report, will not result
in delay of the project into the next fiscal year.
4. Yes, the court lighting levels are below the U~TA standards that Mr. Hirshfield initially wanted....
those standards were not used in establishing the light level at the beginning of the project. The design
engineer used the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) standards with Mr.
Hirshfield's concurrence.
5. At no time during the many project meetings that Mr. Hirshfield attended did he or anyone else
suggest that the existing lighting levels constituted e~ health or safety risk.
5, We don't believe the City of Cupertino can use the "Best and Final" option that Mr. Hirshfield states
is commonly used at the Federal level. We believe the City must comply with the California Public
Contract Code and that particular feature is not offered in the code to our knowledge. Attorney- Mark
Hines, acting on behalf of Chuck Kilian, is researching this and will have a response prior to the meeting.
7. Public Works did not agree, as stated by Mr. Hirshfield, that Add Alternate No. 1 was necessary..
We agreed with trying to achieve the IESNA standard of Class IV of 50 (min 40) foot candles per square
foot or possibly Class III of 60 (min 50) foot candles per square foot. Class IV is considered suitable for
recreation play and Class III is considered suitable for competition play with spectators.
Using some interpretation of the IESNA standards, it seems clear that light levels greater than 60 foot
candles per square foot are necessary only to enable or improve spectator viewing. Only court No. 1 has
spectator seating and those light levels have been designed to be increased to the range of 42 -95 foot
candles, with an average of 74.
Of the remaining 12 courts, 1 court is not used for tennis play. The remaining it courts do not have any
spectator seating beyond a few chairs, nor do they comply with fire department exiting requirements if
formal spectator play is contemplated.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Hirshfield has chosen to misstate the facts of this project to such an extent.
Thanks,
Terry W. Greene, AIA
City Architect
City of Cupertino
10300 Torre Ave
Cupertino, California 95014
650 799 1837 (cell)
408 777 3248 or 408 777 3354
408 777 3333 (fax)
terryg@cupertino.org
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