Fire board awards contract for new fire hall
The Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District Board of Trustees awarded the building contract for Fire Hall No. 1 at their board meeting last Wednesday.
Surrey-based Lark Group earned the contract with a $3.7 million bid, the lowest of the 22 tendered bids and $200,000 under the estimated hall cost.
Board chairman Mark Noyon explained that price included breakout pricing, meaning the board could decide later to take out components, therefore lowering costs.
The tendering process ended July 24 after which the Building Committee narrowed the selection down to eight applicants.
Applicants who passed pre-qualifications, which included bonding, were ranked according to price estimate, experience with similar projects over $3 million, use of local labour, availability for the job and timeframe for completion date.
With the board approving Lark that evening, Mark said they could start mobilizing as early as next week.
“Their timeframe for their tendering is August [2013], and that included not starting until the end of September, but if they start next week, technically we could be that much earlier.”
An earlier start date would enable the GFPID to lock in the provincial interest rate by the October deadline for the loan.
Trustee Sandra Rudischer said, “We are very confident that the long-term debt will be below $2.3 million.”
GFPID will need to obtain a permit from the RDN in order to start construction. The permit would cost $32,380, said Mark. “We feel that’s excessive so we’re working with our Communication Committee to look in to reducing that substantially.”