Title
Award of Bid No. 24-43 in the Amount of $633,835 plus Applicable Gross Receipts Tax to Summit Electric Supply for the Wayfinding Sign Poles and Hardware project, Establish a Project Budget in the Amount of $700,000, and Approve Related Budget Revision 2024-53.
Recommended Action
I move that Council award Bid No. 24-43 in the Amount of $633,835 plus Applicable Gross Receipts Tax to Summit Electric Supply for the Wayfinding Sign Poles and Hardware project; Establish a Project Budget in the Amount of $700,000, and Approve Related Budget Revision 2024-53.
County Manager's Recommendation
The County Manager recommends that Council approve the motion as presented.
Body
On August 22, 2023, the County advertised a formal competitive solicitation to procure Wayfinding sign poles and hardware through Invitation for Bid No. 24-13. On September 12, 2023, only one bid was received and was considered non-responsive due to the lack of documentation required. The County subsequently re-advertised a solicitation for the project on December 15, 2023, through Invitation for Bid No. 24-43. One bid was received on January 17, 2024, and the evaluation committee is recommending an award to Summit Electric Supply.
The Wayfinding Sign Poles and Hardware Project provides new fluted decorative poles with breakaway system, including all mounting hardware, drill-in foundation bases, and replacement poles and spare parts. The procured materials will be used to install Wayfinding signs panels procured previously by Invitation for Bids 21-48.
Background: The intent of the Wayfinding project is to design, fabricate, and install new signs and other informational devices that will identify opportunities for Los Alamos County to welcome their visitors, tell their story, and enhance the visitor experience. The Wayfinding project will increase accessibility and will establish a level of consistency across all forms of communication, setting standards for graphic language of colors, patterns, pictograms, and terminology that will aid visitors.
The recommendation for pursuing the completion of a wayfinding analysis and plan came from the Manhattan Project Park Advisory committee and budget for this effort was approved by Council during the budget hearings for FY2017. Through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, the County hired MERJE, a nationally recognized wayfinding expert, to guide the community through this process. This project began with a Discovery Phase that included a visit and tour of the County, facilitated meetings with stakeholder groups (such as MainStreet Futures committee, Lodgers’ Tax Advisory Board and Manhattan Project Park Advisory-Signage subcommittee) to gather information to help inform the design of the system, review of several existing documents/reports/plans (such as Brand Action Plan, Creative District Plan, and Bandelier Route sign plan) and steering committee meetings. Merje provided the complete design package and sign installation plan in 2017. The complete Wayfinding Analysis is shown in Attachment D.
Two attempts to advertise the project through Requests for Proposals (RFP 20-45 and RFP 21-22) for fabrication, and installation of Wayfinding Signs and Poles took place with no award made. Understanding that the project was too broad in scope to be handled under a single procurement, staff developed a plan to procure the sign panels separately from the poles and utilize County staff to install both poles and signs. Invitation for Bids 21-48r was advertised and awarded successfully to procure 108 Wayfinding sign panels which are currently in storage at the County. This sign procurement totaled $110,978.21.
Approval of this phase of the project will provide for the required poles and hardware to allow staff to begin installation of the Wayfinding signs. Upon approval by Council a Notice of Award will be sent to the contractor on February 28, 2024 to finalize this procurement.
Alternatives
Council could choose not to award the bid or postpone or cancel the project until some future time, leaving 108 fabricated signs to be stored by the County.
Fiscal and Staff Impact/Planned Item
The original approved budget for the project is $450,800.00 with $337,764.54 remaining following the purchase of the sign panels.
A Budget Revision comprised of $362,236.00 from the General Fund will supplement the current project budget which includes a small contingency for unanticipated changes. The total requested budget for the project is $700,000. See Project Budget Spreadsheet (Attachment A) and Budget Revision Form (Attachment B) for additional details.
Attachments
A - Project Budget Spreadsheet
B - Budget Revision 2024-53
C - Wayfinding Project Presentation
D - LAC Wayfinding Analysis