01-27-2014 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Benefits to the owner are the engineering firm and contractor can put longer warranties on their work because much of the unknowns are removed from the equation. This also allows the contractor to secure and schedule work outside of the normal bidding times for the following year. Bid results have shown the prices received using this method have been comparable (and sometimes less) than going through the bidding process. Additionally, this process will provide the owner a 10 year warranty on the work rather than the typical l year warranty. With this method, if there is a premature failure of the paint, the contractor / engineering firm are responsible for any repairs and not the owner. I did have Bolton and Menk review the SEH proposal and offer their opinion on the design-build method (see Exhibit C). The main concerns from Bolton and Menk include: • Minimum inspection and oversight by the engineering firm. • No Engineer to represent the owner with technical issues. • None or less competitive bidding, resulting in higher compared cost. The memo from Bolton and Menk does raise concerns about not having an engineer present on the site full-time, however SEH maintains they will have an inspector on site for all critical aspects of the rehabilitation process. The inspector will be there full time during the repair and painting phases, but may be reduced to '/z time when the contractor is mobilizing onto the site and/or transitioning equipment during the project duration. An inspector will be on site periodically to perform required tests and inspections and an engineer will also be available at all times if the contractor has questions regarding the rehabilitation. SEH is a very reputable company which has been around for over 80 years and has offices in 8 states and SEH has an exclusive partnership with Classic Protective Coatings. Through SEH DesignBuild Classic Protective Coatings will be the only contractor used for the work on our North Water Tower Painting Project. Classic Protective Coatings is one, if not the top water tower painting companies in the country. There is a possibility the project could be cheaper utilizing the traditional design-bid-build method with a 1 year warranty, but the city is not guaranteed the low bidder will be a high quality contractor. Furthermore, because the costs outlined in the Bolton and Menk memo are engineer's estimates, there is a potential the cost will actually be higher by bidding out the project. SEH provided a comparison from the City of Cottage Grove which shows there may be significant savings by utilizing the design build method (see Exhibit D). In Cottage Grove's comparison, they were able to look at bids from Arden Hills, St. Paul Park, and Vadnais Heights and compared those bids to the proposal from the design-build team of SEH / Classic. Cottage Grove found that by using the design-build method they could realize savings of$80,000-$200,000. While I tried to do a similar comparison the size of our tank is unique (400,000 gal) and I was not able to get comparable bids tabs for another similar tower. The more typical size for this type of tower is 1,000,000 gal rather than 400,000 gal. Therefore, while the Cottage Grove analysis is for a different size tower, I feel it still provides a reasonable comparison. While our savings may not be as high because of the size difference, I feel there still may be reasonable savings or it would be cost neutral by utilizing the design bid method over the design-bid-build method with the benefit of a longer warranty. There is one additional item that can be added to this project. This proposal is for the repainting of the tower the same as it is. If the Council would prefer to add the City logo on the water tower, it