OCEAN PINES — OPA General Manager Bob Thompson told the Board of Directors this week that 30 perspective contractors attended the March 28 Yacht Club bid meeting. This week, he said, several have asked to be allowed to send sub-contractors out to take a look at the property in the interest of making their bids as accurate as possible.

Bids were solicited, with specs, for both the complete rehabilitation of the Yacht Club and its replacement, as the contracts saw fit to suggest. 

This aspect of the bidding process, weighed against requests that the bid opening be public,  prompted the Board to split the difference, saying that the openings would be public and the bidding companies along with whether the company proposed a rehab or rebuild would be announced at the public opening, the project costs would remain confidential.

The reason, according to Thompson, is that the bids can not be properly reviewed during a public meeting. The management and board, he said, would be unable to be sure that each of the bids met each of the specifications and as a result, the wrong number of kind of work could be announced in error.

By reviewing the bids privately and making sure “we’re comparing apples to apples” Thompson said, when the numbers are made public their justification would be as well.

The bids are due 4 p.m. Friday May 18 and the public opening will take place between 4:30-5 p.m.

With the likelihood that the beginning of the approval process will coincide with the beginning of the summer season, Thompson also told the Board of Directors that he was very close to naming the new Director of Food and Beverage.

After the position was posted, 40 applicants responded and Thompson recruited three people to help him sift though the applications. The process he used was to have each produce a list of their top 15 preferences based on the resumes alone. When the four lists were compiles, the top seven were identical for all those vetting the resumes.

After interviewing the top seven, Thompson and his advisors have narrowed the list to two finalists.

“We’re down to two extremely good candidates,” Thompson said.

Since the summer events and entertainment are already booked — a necessity as it requires contracts — Thompson said that the primary responsibility for whomever they choose will be to keep food and labor costs in line and work closely with Thompson in developing a detailed business plan for the new or refurbished Yacht Club.

Thompson said that one of the applicants was relatively local and the other was from farther away. He said the decision should be finalized in the coming weeks.