After some discussion, Ocean Pines Directors on Saturday voted 6-0 to rebid second-floor renovations of the country club. Original bids came in much higher than anticipated in part, reportedly, because of a narrow timeframe to complete the work.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(May 3, 2018) It took about 30 minutes of spirited debate, but the Ocean Pines Board on Saturday agreed to rebid second-floor renovations of the country club to try to lower costs.

An initial round of bids were reportedly much higher than anticipated and perhaps double the cost of original estimates.

Director Colette Horn, taking the lead on a motion drafted by absent Director Ted Moroney, moved to direct General Manager John Bailey to rebid the project this month, with a target start of October and a completion date no later than March 8, 2019.

Horn said a previous request for proposals – based on amended Davis, Bowen & Friedel, Inc. drawings – was sent to seven firms earlier this year. The hope was to have work finished by June, but only two of the seven responded and neither firm could meet the “aggressive completion date,” Horn said.

Director Tom Herrick said plans were drawn and approved by a previous board in 2016 and an estimate of $538,000 was received. He said the project stalled because a new administration took over and did not resume interest until this January, when the board spent $40,000 to have new plans created.

“And now we get some bids back, over $1 million,” he said. “This cost now has almost doubled.

“We’re breaking them into phases, but if you put them all together it’s well over the [$1 million] number to trigger a referendum,” Herrick continued. “We’re spending quite a bit of money here.”

He suggested rebidding the project using both old and new sets of architectural drawings, as well as seeking the opinions of residents.

“One board approving one set of plans and another board approving a second set, and now the cost doubles,” Herrick said. “I think we need to get more information.”

Association President Doug Parks said he was uncomfortable with the motion and felt no urgent need to rebid the project.

“Although it’s inconvenient not to have that part of the building operational, certainly to resolve that by spending $1 million just to make it go away is also irresponsible,” he said.

“We should have those plans out on the website and we should solicit input from the membership, so they can share their ideas,” Parks added.

Association President Cheryl Jacobs said she “was not at all happy about the delay.”

“If we delay it further, we will be facing yet another new board, who may have different opinions – again – and that’s kind of what we’ve done in the past in Ocean Pines. We just delay, delay, delay, and then things don’t get done,” she said.

Jacobs said the change in general manager last September affected the scope of the project. As for soliciting more input, Jacobs said a building could not be designed using “8,452 different opinions.”

She said the accelerated timeline was likely responsible for some of the drastic price increase.

“When we [rebid] the plan … that this board has approved, then it’s going to be in a more realistic timeframe, which should reduce the cost as well as creating more competition, because it’s going to go out and more contractors can bid on it,” Jacobs said. “I don’t see the point in looking backwards to an old plan.”

Director Colette Horn agreed, adding the plans were altered “because there were problems with the other plans that this board recognized.”

“I do not agree with going back to the old plans,” she said. “I’d like to see us go ahead with putting out an RFP that supports the plans that we have,” she said.

Herrick pressed Horn to “explain to the membership what was wrong with the original plans, because I missed that meeting.”

According to approved public meeting minutes from Jan. 12, Herrick seconded a motion to approve to spend up to $40,000 for amended architectural drawings for the second floor renovations. Herrick also seconded a motion to suspend Robert’s Rules of Order as Bailey, and Chris Cullen and Andrew Welsh from Davis, Bowen and Friedel, “joined in the discussion” of those renovations. According to the minutes, “After some discussion, the board voted, all in favor, to approve the funding motion.”

“I don’t think the membership was informed, so I’d like you to tell the membership what’s wrong with the first set of plans,” Herrick said on Saturday.

Horn said there were concerns about the aesthetics and functionality of the first drawings, which also lacked some ADA accessibility and an elevator.

Bailey added previous plans called for a large meeting space to be dedicated only to hosting board meetings. He said that was revised instead as “a multifunction room, not just as board room.”

He said a ramp around the entire building was declared unnecessary and the old plans would have moved two offices from the administration building to the country club. “Those are not over there any more,” he said.

A reconfigured roof further allowed for better use of the space and two other conference rooms were created, Bailey said.

“We, as directors, looked at those plans and had an opportunity to make comments on those before we agreed upon them,” Horn said.

Trendic added some of the cost differential was because the previous estimate came from “an unsolicited offer letter from a bidder.”

“It was not a fixed price bid and I don’t think they would have signed that and committed themselves to basically doing the full project scope using that dollar amount,” he said.

“We need to be cognizant of the fact that $538,000 was a moving number, not really a fixed price bid. We also need to keep in mind that there was a change in the scope, based on the improvements that Director Horn just referred to and also the general manager,” Trendic added.

He offered an amendment to release a board-approved request for proposals by June 1 and award bids by July 30.

The amendment and the original motion, as amended, passed 6-0.