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 City of Hermosa Beach -- 04-08-97
Lower Pier Avenue Streetscape Project - Proposed Change in Construction Phasing
Recommendation:
It is recommended that City Council:
The City Council, at a special meeting held December 10, 1996, awarded the construction contract for the Lower Pier Avenue Streetscape Project to Unispec Construction. As you may recall this award was contested at that meeting by the second low bidder but based upon the assurances and references given by Unispec at that time staff recommended award.
In order that the City could maintain a close tab on the progress of construction the specifications for the project stipulated that the contractor meet or exceed certain milestone dates.
These milestones serve as a basis to award the contractor incentives if he completed ahead of this schedule and liquidated damages should he not make the specified dates.
To date Unispec Construction has met only the first milestone date. There are a number of reasons why the contractor has failed to meet the obligations as set forth in that section of the project specifications (attached for your information). Some of the delays experienced in the progression of work such as extra work and utility work by others are legitimate claims for time extension. Others may certainly be attributed to Unispec's work method and job management.
On February 21 and March 5, 1997, Unispec Construction, realizing that delays were going to keep them from meeting the specified milestone dates, issued a Notice of Potential Claim to the City. This letter requested that the City extend the contract by 29 days to cover delays which the contractor felt were beyond his control. Over the past month the Department of Public Works and it's contract construction management firm at ASL attempted to verify the validity of this claim.
On March 11, at the City's request, ASL performed a review of the claims based upon their own inspection and construction management reports. Their evaluation revealed that a maximum of 19 of the requested 29 days may be attributed to factors beyond the contractors control.
Meetings between Unispec Construction, ASL and the City to resolve the minimum 10 day discrepancy proved to be fruitless. Unispec was animate about the 29 day delay.
Analysis:
In the interest of bringing closure to this claim outside of arbitration and primarily to advance the progress of work the Department of Public Works has investigated how performance of various phases of work concurrently will advance the timely completion of the contract. Using Unispec's schedule to determine the time each item of work will take the City has put together a revised phased schedule. This proposed modification to the existing contract phasing would allow work to commence on Phase IV and V simultaneously, with work also allowed to start early on Phase VI. Under this new schedule the City would also allow work to commence on Phase VII immediately.
Unispec has submitted a revised schedule based on this new phasing. The contractor has requested that all liquidated damages accrued to date be dropped in exchange for his release of all claims for delays and extra work days.
The new schedule calls for completion of the north and south sidewalks by May 10, 1997, the Hermosa/Pier intersection by May 22, 1997 and Final Completion by May 31, 1997. The contractor again will face huge liquidated damage fines if he should not meet these new dates. The contractor has requested that incentives be built into the newly phased project. Unispec has requested that $20,000 in incentives be awarded for completion of the sidewalks on or before May 5, 1997 and the Hermosa /Pier intersection on or before May 16, 1997.
Due to the magnitude of the changes to the contract such an order proposes the Department of Public Works requests that City Council review same and give staff direction on either to continue under the existing contract provisions or to change the contract as submitted on attached Change Order #19.
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