As previously reported, there’ve been questions concerning the bidding process for Delridge Skatepark (to be built at the northeast corner of the park adjacent to Delridge Community Center), after the low bidder was reported to not have met an amendment to the qualifications requiring a certain number of skateparks of a certain size to have been built within a certain time – Parks was deciding whether to give the project to the second-lowest bidder, or to re-bid it. According to a note just received from project manager Kelly Davidson, they’ve made the latter decision:
After internal review and review with the City Attorney’s office, Parks is rejecting all bids for Delridge Skatepark. The project and qualifications will be reviewed and the project will be re-bid. I will follow up with more information on the re-bid process once we have determined the dates and revisions to the qualifications.
Just after we published the first version of this, another e-mail came in, this one from Kevin Stoops, a top manager in Parks, confirming this means a months-long delay in skatepark construction:
Earlier today we decided to reject all bids for the Delridge Skatepark and rebid this project later this year or early next year for mid-2011 construction.
This decision has been reached after a review of the very restrictive supplemental bidder qualifications that were issued by addendum to the original project requirements. These focused on volume of work rather than specific construction requirements to complete the work, and are unnecessarily restrictive. the project will be re-bid with clearer contractor qualification requirements outlined in the construction documents. The design of the skatepark will not be changed.
Further, issuance of a construction contract involving excavation and concrete work at this time of year will be problematic was we are now ready to enter a wet rainy period for some time. The construction window for such concrete work is already rapidly coming to an end for 2010 and an extremely wet winter is forecast. Starting construction in the face of such would likely lead to unintended site costs due to wet conditions.
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