Council approved a professional services agreement with Westra Consultants on June 14, 2022, to prepare construction documents for the Les Lacs Pond Improvements Project. At that time, staff presented a proposed project to the Council for development of a base bid project which included an HDPE (high-density polyethylene) pond liner and the addition of several alternate bid items. Council requested that staff consider developing plans and bid documents to capture the additional costs for installing a clay pond liner and deepening the pond. Following this direction, construction documents were developed to capture construction costs and construction days for an HDPE liner, a clay liner, and deepening the pond with a clay liner.
The final construction documents soliciting Competitive Sealed Proposals (CSPs) were released with a final closing date of November 2, 2023. Unfortunately, no contractors turned in a bid despite there being good attendance at a pre-bid meeting. As a result, staff took several important steps to raise contractor interest and participation in a second round of CSPs by reaching out to a large network of Park Development professionals for contractor information, contacting contractors who specialize in pond renovation, and reaching out to contractors who previously performed similar projects for staff. A second round of CSPs were released with a final close date of February 15, 2024. The reissued bid saw only one proposal from Texas Standard Construction (TSC) whose cost was significantly higher than the Opinion of Probable Cost despite very good attendance at the second pre-bid meeting.
The Parks and Recreation Department hosted a "Project Negotiation" meeting on March 1, 2024, with TSC, Westra Consultants and their sub-consultant. From the meeting, TSC's bid summary follows:
- There are a lot of projects in the DFW region that are much easier to perform and have much higher gross profit margins.
- If the project could be restructured to limit the contractor's time on site, there would be labor savings.
- Performing the landscape work separate from TSC's contract would help reduce the contractor's time on the site.
- Revising some of the retaining wall details to a simpler installation methodology would help reduce cost.
- TSC requested the current project to be separated into two contracts for the pond work to be bid by them and the landscape work to be bid and constructed by others after the pond work is complete.
Town staff has gathered support for Westra Consultants to develop two sets of plans for two separate projects based on drawings included in the original bid set, which is anticipated to take eight weeks for them to prepare. Project 1 will be "Project Negotiated" based on TSC's proposal, including construction items such as earthwork, two clay liner options, pond edge walls, ADA sidewalks and flumes. Project 2 will be bid as a new project, with a landscape contractor to include all items in the landscape scope including landscape, irrigation, final grading and sod. Staff asked for a scope change proposal from Westra Consultants to separate one project into two separate projects and make some extensive clarifications to pond related detail. Attachment A to the contract outlining Westra's scope and fee yielded a cost for the amendment not to exceed $96,800 for both phase 1 and the 2 projects as outlined. The Town has available bond funds of $2,546,000, interest from bonds of $430,000 and storm water funds of $2,500,000 to apply towards Westra's contract amendment and construction of both projects. |