Deadline Delayed for Convention Center Bids

San Diego’s proposed $125-million waterfront convention center, already months behind schedule, received another setback Wednesday when it was announced that the deadline for construction bids has been pushed back one month to March 5.

The latest delay is necessary, San Diego Unified Port District officials said, to accommodate construction companies, some of which complained that they didn’t have enough time to properly evaluate the more than 3,000 pages of bid documents.

The time extension has postponed the tentative convention center opening by a month, to about the first of August, 1988, according to Tom Liegler, general manager of the center.

Originally, the center was to open in late 1987, but the date was set back to July, 1988, after a port consultant determined that the planned construction schedule was unrealistically short.

As a result of the various delays, the city has had to cancel a planned Super Bowl gala that had been set for January, 1988, when the city hosts the football spectacular. And tentative plans to woo a national political convention also have been shelved.

In addition, the contractor who is being paid $5.1 million to excavate and prepare the 11-acre site at the foot of 5th Avenue is behind schedule. HuntCor Inc. of Phoenix was to have finished its work in November but won’t be done until sometime next month. Port District officials say they will seek liquidated damages from HuntCor.

William Rick, a port commissioner and chairman of a three-member ad hoc committee that recommended the time extension for opening bids, said that although the committee regretted the latest delay, it was necessary to ensure more competitive bids.

“The committee . . . noted that concern for adequate bidding of this extremely complex building, the largest ever attempted in our county, is more important even than a quick opening date,” Rick said at a press conference held at the Port District offices.

“This extension will allow bidders to intelligently and carefully examine all aspects of the project, and we believe this will result in more complete and more competitive bids which, of course, is our ultimate goal,” Rick said. “This action is what any reasonable and prudent businessman would do on a lesser private project and we, as trustees of public lands, can do no less.”

Both Liegler and Al Reese, spokesman for ConVis, the agency responsible for booking conventions, said the new delay won’t cause the cancellation of any conventions, trade shows or exhibits already booked. The first event scheduled by ConVis is the California Jewelers Assn. trade show in mid-August, 1988.

But others who are dependent on the convention center opening as soon as possible were critical of the delay.

“We’re extremely concerned about this,” said Kipland Howard, president of Torrey Enterprises, the La Jolla-based firm that owns the Hotel Inter-Continental and is preparing to build a second, adjacent hotel tower, due to open in late 1987. In large part, development of both hotels is based on anticipated business from the convention center, which will be built next door.

In late October, the Hotel Inter-Continental abruptly closed two of its restaurants, saying it could not support them until the second tower and convention center are built.

“We don’t want the hotel without a convention center,” Howard said. “The initial amount of time that was given for the bids was more than sufficient. I know for a fact that several companies left the (bid) documents on the shelf until after the holidays. The port has to be more insistent that their time frames are met. It has to be more firm that these contractors will perform on schedule.”

Initially, the Board of Port Commissioners voted to solicit construction bids during a 65-day period ending Feb. 5. Contractors who paid $500 were given an avalanche of paper work consisting of about 2,500 pages of specifications and 850 construction drawings.

Rick said that 15 to 20 companies had requested the documents, but that several large, national firms, such as Morrison-Knudsen Co. Inc., based in Boise, Ida., said they needed more time to adequately evaluate the papers, which, with additions, had increased by 600 pages.

Without the extension, Rick explained, bidders unsure of all the details would have a tendency to over-bid some sections of the project to protect themselves.

In addition, Rick said, there was some concern by the committee that contractors would have trouble pinning down business contracts with major area subcontractors because many of them are tied up on the state’s $149-million, 2,200-bed medium-security prison now beginning construction on Otay Mesa.

“The bidding (for the prison) is going out at the same time . . . and people have to use the same universe of subcontractors,” Rick said.

Given those factors, Rick said, it was thus “more important we don’t push the price up artificially” than keep to the bidding timetable. The construction budget for the 1.4-million-square-foot structure is $101.5 million, which anticipates a 26-month building schedule.

One major construction company said the extension will help it stay in the running for the contract. Hugh Cronin, Southern California area manager for Morrison-Knudsen, said in a telephone interview that he wrote a letter to the Port District last week requesting an extension.

The Port District replied that such a delay wasn’t possible. “They told us they wouldn’t extend, so we thought we were out of it,” Cronin said. “Now that they have decided to delay the opening of bids, it means we can start looking for joint-venture contractors. We’re quite serious about doing something.”

Howard, of Torrey Enterprises, said it’s unrealistic for the Port District to think it can cover all the unknowns in a complex construction project such as the convention center. “There are always uncertainties . . . that’s what contingencies are for,” he said. “You can’t absolutely define every condition that a contractor will find in a scope of construction of this size. The port should know that.”