From today's NG:
Rost said the city hasn't changed bid specifications much from the previous round of bidding, but will offer a $100,000 reward if the successful bidder can complete the project within 10 months of a city notice to proceed. The reward would be reduced to $50,000 two weeks after the deadline. After a month, there would be no reward and the city would begin charging the contractor for lost parking revenues, a term known as liquidated damages. The rewards are designed to attract additional bidders, Rost said.
The city wants the parking deck, which would be at the southeast corner of Randolph and Hill streets, finished by the start of 2009 because the facility will be used by many residents and customers of the M2 on Neil project, a nine-story building going up just east of the parking garage. M2 is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Seems a bit reactive to me.
Gotta keep the private developers happy...
Why not jack up the meters to a buck an hour, and then just pay whatever the deck costs to get it built as quickly as possible?
This is all too bad, because there was a parking deck a block away that just HAD to be torn down.
Is a $100k reward really going to make a difference when the city's estimate was $2 million off the bids? How about this solution instead: cancel the parking deck project, return parking rates to where they were before, and let the developer build the parking deck they need for their new building? That seems fair to me. If the city really wants to be generous, they can still give the land away.
"This is all too bad, because there was a parking deck a block away that just HAD to be torn down."
The parking deck in question did need to get torn down. It was even trying to tell us as it self-destroyed, car-crushing chunk by car-crushing chunk. But I agree with what I think is your real point -- that the parking needs in downtown Champaign have not been handled deftly.
"How about this solution instead: cancel the parking deck project, return parking rates to where they were before, and let the developer build the parking deck they need for their new building?"
What, are ya nuts? Throwing around such common-sense ideas might lead some to think that a drawn-out, bureaucratic, multi-phased process isn't the best approach for all concerned.
I don't understand how this addition is going to attract new bidders--are there really any contractors out there who will build a parking deck for substantially less than the previous bids in the hope that they can get a bonus from the City?
The "Robeson" parking deck was privately owned by David Meyer. It was his private decision to tear it down rather than dump money into a rusting 40 year old deck which structural engineers had reported was unsafe for occupancy. It would have cost millions to repair decades of neglect on that private small deck, so he tore it down.
The incentive for completion on time will be calculated into everyone's bids. If it is achievable they will all figure that they will receive it and their bids will reflect that reality. If it cannot be completed in that time frame the bidders will not assume they are going to get that rebate.
Lately a lot of folks have been concerned about inadequate parking downtown. If the developer built only private parking for his development an opportunity would be forever lost to add a couple hundred extra spaces to the public inventory. This deck will have parking for the private development and for the public, and all the users will pay for all the parking they use.
By the way, those stories of the collapse of downtown when parking rates went to 75 cents per hour have not exactly materialized. Since February 4 has anyone noticed an increase in empty metered spaces in the core of downtown at any time of day or night?