https://n2v.almanacnews.com/square/print/2018/08/15/civic-center-cost-cutting-on-atherton-council-agenda


Town Square

Civic center cost-cutting on Atherton council agenda

Original post made on Aug 14, 2018

Atherton's City Council will work on the difficult task of trying to figure out how to reduce the costs of its planned new civic center at a special meeting on Friday morning, Aug. 17.

Read the full story here Web Link posted Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 12:00 AM

Comments

Posted by Peter Carpenter
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Aug 14, 2018 at 4:09 pm

Peter Carpenter is a registered user.

The Town Manager states:
" In May 2018, the bid climate proved spectacularly higher than anticipated and the number of pre-qualified bidders that opted to bid on the project dwindled to 2, with the remaining 5 dropping out because they were just simply too busy. The lower bid of the two submitted was nearly 40% higher than the base estimates for the project."

And since then almost 1500 structures in Northern California have been destroyed by fire and, as a result, construction costs will surge even higher for at least the next two years.

Web Link

"A survey from the Associated General Contractors of America showed that 75% of West Coast firms were struggling to fill construction positions, up from 71% in 2016. The shortage comes as California added nearly 50,000 construction jobs in the period of July 2016 to July 2017, with 34,000 projects in the Southern California region. That was two months before the fires began."

And that was before 2018's even more devastating fires.

I predict that ANY plan put out to bid by the Town will result in bids in excess of $50 million - IF anybody even responds to the RFP.


Peter