Waterfront Opening Could Be June, 1989 : April Start on Convention Center Is Goal

It now appears that the earliest that construction can begin on the waterfront convention center will be in April, a port commissioner said Tuesday.

Depending on the length of construction, which could be from 26 months to at least 30 months, the earliest the center could open would be June, 1989.

The April, 1987, construction projection was made by Bill Rick, a San Diego Unified Port District commissioner and head of the district’s convention center committee. He made his comments in remarks to reporters during a recess at Tuesday’s district meeting.

Earlier, Rick had reported to the commission on the progress of rebidding the construction contract for the convention center. Last April, commissioners unanimously rejected six construction bids that came in $22 million more than the Port District’s $101.5 million budget.

Port officials said then that the rebidding would postpone the center’s target opening date from mid-1988 to the spring of 1989, a delay that the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau said could cost more than $60 million in lost convention business.

One of the reasons for the high construction bids was the numerous design changes made during the final stages of the bidding process. In fact, bids were solicited while the design specifications were only 60% complete, leading port officials to believe that construction firms may have inflated their figures as a hedge against unexpected expenses or construction problems.

In his report to the port commission, Rick said the architect, led by Ward Deems of San Diego, has consolidated the plans and specifications into “one coherent set of documents. In the case of the plans alone, the reduction (has been) from some 1,400 sheets in the bid set to some 900 sheets in the consolidated set.”

The Port District’s new construction management firm, the Fluor Corp., has said the rejection of the bids saved “the port major extra costs. These costs would have been: standby costs because the site was not ready; and charges because of conflicts, errors or omissions in the plans,” Rick said.

Fluor is continuing to search for potential cost savings by identifying items that could be deleted from the center.

Meanwhile, Rick and fellow commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer have accompanied Mayor Maureen O’Connor on a tour of convention centers, including ones in Anaheim and New York, to make a comparison of San Diego’s plans.

Rick said his committee should be able to give the port commission with a final cost-cutting recommendation Aug. 19.

It won’t be until mid-September, however, that Fluor has finished its work on analyzing the center’s construction program and the completeness of the plans.

Rick said the Port District would probably solicit bids in mid-December and open them in February or March. Construction would start about a month later.