Looks Like Smooth Sailing for the Convention Center

Of all the words spoken and written about the controversial San Diego convention center, these two had never surfaced: good luck.

That changed two weeks ago, though, when the San Diego Unified Port District opened its newest set of construction bids and found that the lowest was $13 million less than one it had turned down last year.

Now, one week before the port commissioners are due to vote to formally accept the bid, it appears that good fortune may indeed have a place in the Port District’s lexicon.

According to Port District officials, analysis of the $110.9-million low bid made by the joint venture partnership Tutor-Saliba/Perini Corp. is moving ahead smoothly and all indications are that the bid will be ready for a formal Port District vote next Tuesday.

Things are proceeding so well, the officials say, that construction of the 1.75-million-square-foot center, which is more than a year behind schedule, will probably begin March 23.

Since bids were opened on Feb. 11, the Port District has checked the low bid to ensure that it is valid and meets a series of varied and mostly technical requirements such as having enough liability insurance coverage, bonding capability and an adequate amount of minority business participation.

While Tutor-Saliba/Perini has met the 15% minority business goal, primarily through hiring subcontractors, it has been unable to meet the Port District’s goal that 5% of the center’s construction business go to women. But Port District officials say the joint venture has made a “good faith” effort at finding more women and thus its bid won’t be jeopardized.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor appears to have eased off her stand that about $6 million earmarked for construction of huge tents on the center’s patio roof should be used instead for immediate expansion of the center, which she says will be too small, with its 250,000 square feet of exhibit space, to be competitive the day it opens.

Port Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer, who along with two others represents San Diego on the seven-member board, said Monday: “She thinks, as I do, that spending money for the tents is not money that is terribly well used.”

But it’s now apparent that a majority of the port commissioners remain unswayed and will most likely vote for the tents next week, Wolfsheimer said.

O’Connor now is pushing hard for the Port District to help pay for a future bayside trolley line that would stop at the convention center, at the foot of 5th Avenue. She also is seeking an increase in the budget alloted by the Port District for the center’s furniture, fixtures and equipment.

O’Connor would like a commitment from the Port District of about $10 million toward the bayside trolley line as well as $5 million to $7 million in the furniture and equipment budget.

Wolfsheimer doesn’t expect that these concerns will be an obstacle to approving the Tutor-Saliba/Perini bid.

“As long as the Port District is willing to be realistic and have (the furniture and equipment) budget increased and give some aid to the trolley, I don’t think there’s a problem. There has to be at least a tentative commitment to find out more about these things,” Wolfsheimer said. “There’s money to do all these things.”

Paul Downey, the mayor’s press secretary, said that although O’Connor would rather not see millions of dollars spent on the tents, she has made her point and is not planning any last-minute, all-out lobbying effort.

“Her position hasn’t changed . . . she’s still hopeful,” Downey said.

Tom Liegler, executive director of Convention Center Corp., the group that will operate the center after it opens, says the mayor is right in saying that the $5 million currently alloted to pay for the center’s fixtures is not enough. The $5 million, he said, is a carryover from the original convention center construction plans of 1983, when the center was envisioned as a much smaller facility.

“We don’t have a great deal of data yet on this . . . what we know is that the $5 million is something that has been carried along (through various center plans),” he said. “It wasn’t a critical item when the plans were formulated.”

It doesn’t appear that critical at the moment either because, according to Liegler, specifications for furniture and equipment are one of the last items to go out for public bidding after construction begins.