Last week, we reported that Halifax’s top bureaucrat, Richard Butts, had awarded the contract on Phase 2 of the stadium study just one day before council was to vote on a motion that could have killed the awarding of the contract. Media folk rightly concentrated on the questionable optics of Butts’ decision, but left untold was the specifics of the contract. I asked the city’s communications department which firm won the contract, but apparently Butts’ decision was so rushed that the firm itself hadn’t been told of the award, and so I couldn’t be given the info—read into that whatever you will.
Anyway, today I have the details. The city had expected to spend up to $275,000 for the Phase 2 study, and the winning bid came in for $249,450. Halifax firm Fowler, Bauld & Mitchell is the winning bidder, but it is not doing the work alone; they’re heading a team that consists of CEI Architecture Planning Interiors, Sierra Planning and Management, CBCL, Myrgan Inc, Entuitive, CRA Corporate Research Associates, Davis Landon, and Colliers International.
Fowler, Bauld & Mitchell has an impressive track record, including Citadel High and the new Halifax Central Library. Some of the partners, however, don’t have such stellar records, in my opinion. Sierra, for example, put together the half-assed Phase 1 study, which looks like something some Grade Nine kids did during after school detention.
Unsuccessful companies bidding on the project were:
– Ekistics Planning in Association with Cannon Design, SNC Lavalin, KPMG, Colliers International, Solutions Inc
-Trada Developments with partner firm Harvey Architecture
-Rossette, in partnership with WHW
I don’t yet have the bidding scores.
Here’s what we’re supposed to get for our $249,450 (Page Three):
A site selection and preliminary design process will be initiated based on a series of criteria developed in Phase 1. These Phase 2 components are critical to the success of the analysis and will allow for a determination of capacity in the region to locate, design and construct a multi- use stadium facility in order to fulfill economic and community goals as identified in Phase 1. Phase 2 will unfold as an open discussion with citizens including a Request for Proposal (RFP) for potential land and development partnerships, and public opportunities for feedback and comment on design components. The analysis will provide Regional Council with a proposed site (s), facility design concepts, and estimated costs, Class C.
The study is to be completed by December.
This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2011.
A wooden stadium seems appropriate, logs at New Page could be used and the contractors get the money they are owed. Dexter may even find some money to help keep the country folk employed.
One of the Sobey sons was a keen soccer player so we could hit him up for the purchase of naming rights or the free juice at half time.
Naming rights are only available to FIFA sponsors so that means slipping Sepp Blatter and his cronies a few boxes of $100 bills, although the economic problems in the world may require substituting bars of gold for the cash.
BREAKING NEWS – Tim Bousquet was wrong last week. He stated that the phase 2 study had been awarded to a Toronto firm and implied that it was a friend of Halifax CAO Richard Butts.
I would like to see a Reality Bites article on all the false conspiracies that Tim has written about over the past few years.
er, fenwick– I said no such thing. That’s a complete and utter lie. I never said Butts awarded it to a Toronto firm, and never said or implied it was awarded to a friend of Butts. Never. Nowhere. Never happened.
I am rather confused. If the winning firm hadn’t been told it had won the contract, in what sense had it actually been awarded? It sounds like councillors were misled to believe that the motion to rescind the vote to proceed with Phase 2 would be toothless. One wonders how councillors would have voted if they had known the contract hadn’t actually been awarded and they could indeed have stopped Phase 2 from proceeding.
I am sorry, your previous article didn’t state that it was awarded to a Toronto company. It was stated in a Halifax local area media source (allnovascotia.com) but not your article. Here is your previous article – http://www.thecoast.ca/RealityBites/archiv… . It was just the usual “there must be a scandal somewhere” type of article. But you didn’t state that the contract was awarded to a Toronto firm. My mistake.