Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

Melodyam said:
The city would be better giving this work it to a general contractor that can actually finishes projects on-time...... Carillion really had no track record and well Bondfield we know there situation.
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As has been discussed above in great detail, the City is obligated to award contracts to the lowest compliant bidder unless they have been banned for some previous infraction. The City saw signs of danger and managed to get rid of (or not renew) contract for Carillion and - though the work certainly slowed down for several months - the Bondfield workers remain working and their bonding insurance company is involved in ensuring they are being paid. That's how the process is supposed to work and, rather to my surprise, it seems to be.
 
DSC said:
As has been discussed above in great detail, the City is obligated to award contracts to the lowest compliant bidder unless they have been banned for some previous infraction. The City saw signs of danger and managed to get rid of (or not renew) contract for Carillion and - though the work certainly slowed down for several months - the Bondfield workers remain working and their bonding insurance company is involved in ensuring they are being paid. That's how the process is supposed to work and, rather to my surprise, it seems to be.
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Well there's an inherent flaw with the bidding process. The lowest bid isn't always the best for giving the contract to. The city will put out an RFP and companies can come in with a low bid (some with little to no experience in the field the project is for, or might severely underestimate cost/scope of the project) and win the contract. Then guess what...fast forward a few years and the project is over budget and behind schedule.
 
raptor said:
York Concourse has similar stairs with 180 switchbacks. How would you redo the stairs and not taking up more square footage?
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Does having stairways that switch back on themselves necessarily take up less space than a straight staircase? Provided of course you have sufficient horizontal space to run the staircase straight, which in the case of Union we do.
 
cirez said:
Well there's an inherent flaw with the bidding process. The lowest bid isn't always the best for giving the contract to. The city will put out an RFP and companies can come in with a low bid (some with little to no experience in the field the project is for, or might severely underestimate cost/scope of the project) and win the contract. Then guess what...fast forward a few years and the project is over budget and behind schedule.
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It's not companies with little to no experience winning this bids. Carillion and Bondfield both had to show first that they had the capability of doing the work: you don't qualify to bid unless you can show that. Once they qualified, however, they low-balled the bids. If the companies are large enough, they can sometimes get through a low-balled bid, but if they do it too often they are in trouble. They also look for ways to charge more for unforeseen circumstances they encounter, and typically go after the project owner when change orders are made: sometimes they can dig their way out of their economic pit that way.

In any case, poor company policies put both Carillion and Bondfield on the ropes. We'd avoid a lot of this if we were required to choose the second lowest qualified bidder. That way, companies are encouraged to bid realistically, not ridiculously.

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cirez said:
Well there's an inherent flaw with the bidding process. The lowest bid isn't always the best for giving the contract to. The city will put out an RFP and companies can come in with a low bid (some with little to no experience in the field the project is for, or might severely underestimate cost/scope of the project) and win the contract. Then guess what...fast forward a few years and the project is over budget and behind schedule.
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You may well be right (and this has been discussed here many times) but the fact is that the City is legally obligated to select the lowest compliant bidder so there is no point people here whining about City staff's incompetence when they do this and something goes wrong.
 
DSC said:
You may well be right (and this has been discussed here many times) but the fact is that the City is legally obligated to select the lowest compliant bidder so there is no point people here whining about City staff's incompetence when they do this and something goes wrong.
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They should start picking the second lowest bidder

(I dunno how the tendering process works at all, I'm just kidding)
 
someMidTowner said:
Bonus shots not included in the story:
East of the west moat:
View attachment 183895
Busy food court we all know about by now
View attachment 183896

Future "Fresh Market" area
View attachment 183897View attachment 183898
Bay lower retail area
View attachment 183899

Bay Concourse
View attachment 183900View attachment 183901
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It says on one of the news things that cover the media tour (I forget which one) it says we might get the bay concourse before the retail level below it
 
DSC said:
You may well be right (and this has been discussed here many times) but the fact is that the City is legally obligated to select the lowest compliant bidder so there is no point people here whining about City staff's incompetence when they do this and something goes wrong.
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The key word in that phrase, however, is "compliant".

There have been many occasions in other City departments - such as the TTC -- where the lowest bidder did not with the tender as they were not the most compliant with the requirements of the tender.

Dan
 
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I work in the private sector. We always pick the lowest bidder on projects.

The only time this doesn't happen is if the bidder forgot something in their Bid.

The issue with infrastructure projects is there are only a handful of companies that can actually do them.
 
DSC said:
Coming to Council next week":

CC7.12
ACTION​
​
​
Ward: 10​

Carillion Canada Inc. v. City of Toronto Proposed Settlement of Outstanding Claims - Union Station Revitalization Project​
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I'm hopeful this will lead to the completion of the Front st promenade ceiling.
 
interchange42 said:
It's not companies with little to no experience winning this bids. Carillion and Bondfield both had to show first that they had the capability of doing the work: you don't qualify to bid unless you can show that. Once they qualified, however, they low-balled the bids. If the companies are large enough, they can sometimes get through a low-balled bid, but if they do it too often they are in trouble. They also look for ways to charge more for unforeseen circumstances they encounter, and typically go after the project owner when change orders are made: sometimes they can dig their way out of their economic pit that way.

In any case, poor company policies put both Carillion and Bondfield on the ropes. We'd avoid a lot of this if we were required to choose the second lowest qualified bidder. That way, companies are encouraged to bid realistically, not ridiculously.

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Two problems:

1) There's no guarantee the second lowest bidder has low balled any less egregiously based on their understanding of the project. In fact, there's no statistical evidence to even suggest this is correlated in any way.

2) Often times there are only two qualified bidders. So your suggestion then really becomes to take the highest bidder :)

A better strategy may be to give the city discretion over which bidder to choose as long as the lowest bids are all within a small range. But for all I know that is actually already the case.
 
bobbob911 said:
Two problems:

1) There's no guarantee the second lowest bidder has low balled any less egregiously based on their understanding of the project. In fact, there's no statistical evidence to even suggest this is correlated in any way.

2) Often times there are only two qualified bidders. So your suggestion then really becomes to take the highest bidder :)

A better strategy may be to give the city discretion over which bidder to choose as long as the lowest bids are all within a small range. But for all I know that is actually already the case.
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Its easy to blame the contractors, but often times the client wants to bring down the bid price by value engineering out important and necessary items.... and then they come back as change orders at higher cost and with delay. Both sides can play dumb games.
 
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