Panel Questions High Convention Center Bids

The search for answers to why construction bids for San Diego’s convention center came in more than $20 million above expectations began in earnest Thursday on several fronts.

An ad hoc committee of the San Diego Unified Port District, which is building the huge structure on the waterfront near Seaport Village, met for two hours and directed the Port District staff to meet with the project’s architects and consultants today and over the weekend to find out what went wrong.

“We’ll be looking very deeply at all aspects of the bidding. Why were our experts so far off?” asked Louis Wolfsheimer, a Port District commissioner and member of the ad hoc committee. “We will be examining (that) question and the alternatives.”

And acting Mayor Ed Struiksma announced the formation of a task force of community leaders to look into the convention center matter and come up with recommendations of what to do next.

“We want to gather information about what went wrong and where do we go from here,” Struiksma said. “The citizens have a tremendous right to know what is going on.”

Although the Port District is responsible for building the 1.4-million-square-foot structure, the city will operate and manage it.

Thursday’s action by Struiksma and the Port District followed by a day the opening of construction bids for the convention center, which is now being excavated under a separate $5.4-million contract.

The bids from six national contractors were $22 million to $32 million over the $101.5-million budget limit set by the Port District for construction of facility itself.

The total budget--including excavation, furniture and equipment, architectural fees and the like--was set at $125 million. But the high cost of the construction bids, if accepted by the Port District, means the total cost will exceed $150 million.

One piece of encouraging news for the Port District that did come out of the bid opening was that the contractors’ bids for a second, much less costly, part of the project were about in line with what the Port District had expected. This part of the bid consisted of various amenities aimed at upgrading the center, such as a tent over the terrace, a wind screen, more restrooms and elevators. Bids ranged from $6 million to $7 million.

Among the consulting firms that will meet today and through the weekend is Ward Deems, the principal architect in the convention center’s design team, which also included Loschky Marquardt & Nesholm of Canada and Arthur Erickson Architects of Minneapolis.

Deems was severely criticized on Wednesday by some people, including former port commissioner and mayoral candidate Maureen O’Connor, for telling the Port District the convention center could be built within the $125-million budget.

In fact, Deems late last year told the port commission it was likely the bids would come in 2% to 3% under budget because of favorable market conditions.

Deems, who declined to comment on Wednesday, issued the following statement on Thursday: “The convention center architects are reviewing the results of yesterday and positioning their viewpoints and opinions so they can make their recommendations to the port.”

The budget estimate by Deems and the rest of the architectural team was supported by an independent cost analysis of the design performed by the architectural firm of Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff of Los Angeles.

The analysis said the cost could be kept to $125 million, though it would be close, and lengthened the construction schedule from 20 months to 26 months.

“It was a big surprise to us,” Robert Lyons, the architectural firm’s convention center project manager, said Thursday of the high bids. “We either have to go through an engineering effort to bring the cost down or make a decision to go ahead as it stands.”

The firm’s analysis, Lyons said, was based on convention center construction costs in Anaheim and Phoenix.

Because several design elements and refinements were added to the San Diego center’s construction specifications just before advertising for bids, Lyons said, the Port District’s architects readjusted their estimates, indicating that the bids might come in $4.5 million higher than the budgeted $101.5 million.

That would have been all right, Lyons explained, because the Port District and the architects had set aside $6 million for just such contingencies.

What has to happen now, he said, is for the Port District, its architects and consultants, including Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff, to find out from the contractors if “there is one or two things in the design that no one caught except the contractors that with a slight modification would save a lot of money.”

The contractors should be interested in cooperating, Lyons said, because they have spent upwards of $100,000 preparing their bids and have stake in what happens to the center.

“It would be great if we could find things to save $10 million or $12 million and then rebid in a few weeks for just those items,” Lyons said.

The Howard firm and the center’s architects already have some recommendations about where money-saving modifications might be made, said Lyons, who didn’t elaborate.

“What it looks like is that we can put in a little more money (into construction) or take a few things out,” Lyons said.

Some of the contractors who bid on the project said they don’t know why the bids came in so high. But, they said, the fact there was little separating most of them means they are a valid reflection of the center’s true cost.

Only $2.4 million separated the four lowest bidders.

“These things are very hard to make a judgment on,” said Jay Arnelson, executive vice president of Continental Heller Corp. of Sacramento, the firm that submitted the lowest base bid.

“Sometimes the architect doesn’t properly assess the work. He doesn’t spend the time the contractor does taking every piece and studying it hard,” Arnelson said. “It’s a large job and until you put everything together, you really don’t know how it’s going to come out.”

“I think from the nature of the bidding there’s a good consensus of what the project costs.”

Among the various options being considered by the Port District is a redesign of the convention center. The problem is that such an effort could take several months, further delaying an opening already more than six months behind schedule.

Wolfsheimer said that while members of the Port District staff meet with Deems and other architects over the next few days, the idea is to move as rapidly as possible to make a decision. Even so, he said, it’s likely no decision will be made for several weeks, he said.

Also supporting that point of view was Rick, who said, “We’re going to take one bite at a time.”

Rick, who heads the ad hoc committee, which also consists of Wolfsheimer and Phil Creaser, met Thursday with Don Nay, the Port District’s executive director, and John Wilbur, the senior engineer for the Port District.

“We directed Nay and his staff to pursue with HNTB and the convention center architect in the next two days what went wrong, if that’s possible, and recommend some courses of action,” Rick said, noting that Nay will report back to the ad hoc committee at 10 a.m. Monday.

“I think we want to set a practical time limit on making a decision, but I don’t know what that is. The bids are good for 60 days,” said Rick.

Struiksma said he will begin picking members of the 15- to 20-member task force today. It will consist of engineers, architects, members of the Chamber of Commerce, officials from the Port District and others.

“We want them to take three or four weeks’ time to look at the situation and issue some kind of report that gives us a clearer picture of what went wrong,” Struiksma said. “In this way, we can intelligently plan our next move.”

Both Rick and Wolfsheimer said they supported Struiksma’s idea.

“I think it will be a good idea, and I’m more than happy with it as long as they are willing . . . to move rapidly,” Wolfsheimer said.

O’Connor on Thursday also called for the formation of an independent committee to study the convention center matter.