Dear editor,I was disappointed to read that City CAO Sandy Gray and the councillors decided to do the relatively small, $5.4-million Lewis Centre project with a project manager, a construction manager and the traditional architect. I belonged to the project management institute for years and believe in the system for larger projects. In this case, the people of Courtenay will be paying for three professionals to carry out one minor project.I would like the City to advise us what the projected cost of the project manager and the construction manager will add to this project. Under normal conditions, the architect will receive six per cent of the capital cost of the project to handle these two functions as well as his own. So the question is, what will these three professionals cost the City and how does that compare to one general contractor?Another disturbing fact in this project is that the architect shortlisted only four firms for the construction manager position 鈥� three from the mainland and one from Victoria (Knappett).In the Comox Valley, we have qualified and bonded contractors who are capable of doing this job under a lump sum bid proposal or are fully qualified to do construction management. Right off the top of my head I can think of Tom Plumb from Kinetic Construction, Alan Fletcher of AFC Construction, Joe Formosa of Muchalat Construction and Wayne Scofield of Ketza Pacific Construction. I do not think the project will proceed any faster by bidding out work over a space of time or in smaller packets and I think there will be a co-ordination problem with work that overlaps two or more trades. Traditionally, the mechanical and electrical trades have work that can fit into either category depending on the engineer鈥檚 preference. I do not believe what Randy Wiwchar says when he quotes that, 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a fair, open transparent process that everybody will have an opportunity to bid on, whatever number of tenders that go out.鈥漈he selection of a construction manager surely proves that Randy is wrong. Again, I urge the City of Courtenay to advise all of us what the added cost of hiring two professionals will be to manage this job.Dennis Guelpa P Eng. RMC,CourtenayEditor's note: Dennis Guelpa's firm Guelpa Construction Ltd. renovated the CRA in the last major bidding.
