Park Ridge aldermen gave tentative approval for a construction management contract to oversee renovations for the city’s Fire Station 35, near Devon and Cumberland Avenues, at their Committee of the Whole Meeting last week.
Staff from the city’s public works, fire, and community preservation and development departments evaluated six proposals from different companies and selected Cordogan Clark & Associates, which also did the design portion of the Station 35 renovations.
Park Ridge Finance Director Christopher Lipman said Cordogan Clark’s responsibility as construction manager would be to hire construction workers for the renovations and provide basic work site amenities like a trailer and portable toilets, while also making the fire station functional.
The City Council will vote on whether to approve the contract at its Oct. 16 meeting.
Photo provided by Cordogan, Clark and Associates.
Cordogan Clark’s contract as the construction manager is for $1,025,467. Cordogan Clark’s contract as the architect for the renovation was for $353,949. Lipman told Pioneer Press that the construction management contract came in under budget, but other things, like the design, engineering and field work upped the budget from $5.7 million to $7.85 million to renovate both fire stations in Park Ridge.
Lipman said evaluators ranked construction manager companies without knowing their proposed offers to be as objective as possible. The companies were scored on their experience in construction management, quality, how they would do their work, and planned continuity for fire station usage during construction. The evaluators were told at the end what the offers were. Being able to provide a detailed outline of how the project would be done ranked as the heaviest criteria, according to a memo
More Top Picks Best Dry Eye Relief Devices For Computer Users
created by Lipman.F.H. Paschen, a competing candidate, came close to outscoring Cordogan Clark in the evaluations made by staff, and had a cheaper offer coming in at $100,000 less than Cordogan Clark’s offer, pointed out 2nd Ward Ald. Rick Biagi.
“Cordogan has a really good understanding of this process,” said Lipman. “One of the things we have to contend with is the phasing of this process — we have to keep an operating fire station — and I think all of the evaluators took that into account,” he said.
4th Ward Ald. Harmony Harrington said Cordogan Clark might have had an unfair advantage in the evaluation process because they were the architects who designed the construction phases. “It feels like a little bit Cordogan Clark built the answer key, and then answered it,” she said. “It’s almost like insider information going [into it],” she added.
Lipman said all the candidates were given a walk-through of the renovations and that everyone was able to see the designs.
The city council provisionally approved the contract with a unanimous vote.