To: Board of Supervisors
From: County Administrative Office
Agenda Section: Consent
SUBJECT:
title
Bid Award Authorization for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Department of Justice (DOJ) Consent Decree Barrier Removal at Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit, 901 5th Street, Eureka, CA. Project Number 2017-103
end
RECOMMENDATION(S):
Recommendation
That the Board of Supervisors:
1. Receive and file the bids for the Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit, Project Number 2017-103;
2. Award the project to the lowest responsible and responsive bidder, RH Construction; and
3. Authorize the County Administrative Officer to sign the construction agreement with RH Construction, in the form of the attached sample agreement subject to approval from County Counsel and Risk Management.
Body
SOURCE OF FUNDING:
ADA Internal Service Fund (3552)
DISCUSSION:
On Dec. 7, 2017, the County of Humboldt entered into a consultant services agreement with Nichols, Melburg & Rossetto Architects (NMR) to design ADA improvements at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit. The construction project will renovate and improve the existing Medical Unit shower and adjacent holding cell to make them ADA compliant and to revise existing heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) mechanical systems due to the improvements. Staff worked with Public Works, the Correctional staff and NMR in the review and development of the project’s plans and timeline.
Construction is expected to take 75 calendar days to complete and is anticipated to begin in January 2019, and be completed by April 2019.
On Oct. 16, 2018, your Board authorized the Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit Project to be advertised for public bid. On Nov. 20, 2018, the county received and opened two bids and the results are as follows:
Contractor: Base Bid:
RH Construction - Rio Dell California $399,500.00
Danco Builders - Arcata, California $437,164.00
The general conditions set forth in the project specifications manual require that the project be awarded on the merits of the lowest qualified, responsible and responsive base bid. In this case, staff recommends that your Board award this project to RH Construction - Rio Dell, California for the total base bid award amount of $399,500.
The total project cost for the Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit project were estimated at $319,460 based off of a construction cost estimate provided by NMR to staff on Aug. 9, 2018. Current project design costs combined with the RH Construction, Inc. base bid amount of $399,500, establishes a revised project cost of $439,800, and is approximately $120,400 over initial project estimates. A discussion and review with the county’s design consultant, NMR, has determined that project escalation and bid totals coming in above initial cost estimates for this project can be attributed to the following:
Construction costs have increased dramatically in Humboldt County over the past year. The design consultants used the construction costs for the Humboldt County Jail change-out room project completed in 2017 as a comparison to help determine the estimated cost of the project. Even though some escalation of construction cost was included in the estimate to attempt to get to today’s costs, there was 1 year between the bid dates.
There were only two responsive bidders. Construction cost estimates assume that four bidders will submit bids on the project. When there are more general contractors that bid on a project, the level of competition increases and the construction cost goes down.
Projects in the secure areas of the correctional facility present an inherent level of difficulty that limits the pool of contractors interested in the project. The coordination required getting materials to the project site and the requirements for scheduling construction activities so as not to disrupt other occupants of the building, specifically inmate sleeping times and the courthouse operations, have a direct impact on increased project construction costs.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The total project cost for the Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit project is estimated at $439,800. The ADA Compliance (3552-152) has sufficient funds for budgeted for this project in Fiscal Year 2018-19.
The item before you today supports your Boards’ Strategic Framework of enforcing laws and regulations to protect residents.
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
None
ALTERNATIVES TO STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS:
Your Board could choose not to approve the recommendations to award the project, cancel the bid and instruct staff to advertise and re-solicit bids however, this is not recommended as a second round of bids may result in increased base bid amounts, higher escalation costs, costs associated with increased staff time and the county may be subject to fines for non-compliance, as the Humboldt County Correctional Facility Medical Unit is identified by the DOJ with ADA barriers that must be removed prior to the termination of the consent decree in September 2019.
ATTACHMENTS:
November 20, 2018, Bid Results
Construction Agreement- RH Construction
PREVIOUS ACTION/REFERRAL:
Board Order No.: C9
Meeting of: 10/16/18