(Seguin) — Guadalupe County has awarded a local contractor the job for the renovation and remodel of what will be the future Guadalupe County Veterans Center located at 205 E. Weinert St.
The Guadalupe County Commissioners Court on Tuesday unanimously approved the Koehler Company for the job.
The company’s bid proposal was $4.3 million.
Don Cunningham, the purchasing buyer for Guadalupe County says the Koehler Company was one of several contractors who had an interest in converting the old hospital/ Head Start campus into the new veteran’s center.
“On Jan. 25, the commissioners court approved the order to advertise in their request for proposals. The IFB (invitation for bid) was sent to 801 potential vendors. On Feb. 9, a pre-bid meeting was held at the project site where we had over 44 different contractors and subcontractors in attendance. On March 2, the proposals were due, and we received a total of seven proposals. The following day, the proposals were reviewed by purchasing and Thorn Architects and were ranked and we held interviews with the two highest ranking companies,” said Cunningham.
Prior to making a decision and after reviewing the ratings of the committee chosen to handle the process, court members found themselves having to justify their decision to go with the Koehler Company especially since the $4.3 million bid was not the lowest. When compared to the other six bids, the bid was the fourth highest in the grouping.
Taking the lead in explaining their decision was Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher.
“It’s always a challenge. I know the court members definitely know me and I just want to say it how it is. I know there may be some frustrations with other contractors that feel like the Koehler Company gets a lot of the work and a tremendous amount of it and I understand where some of that frustration can be, but we are extremely fortunate to have a local company that is engaged, that has the resources, the experiences in these types of projects that can be an option for the county but there’s a reason. If I was on the outside looking at something like this, I may question that also if we bid on multiple county projects and didn’t get them. For the second highest rated contractor, they came in at pricing — they got higher scores. Safety it was the same thing. Overall experience was close but if you look at that related experience on those type of projects, it’s really not the wheelhouse of that type of contractor to focus on that type of development. That’s the biggest difference between them other than the specific interview questions on what we could do as alternative options to save money on this type of renovation or reconstruction project,” said Kutscher.
Kutscher says it’s important that contractors are thanked for taking the time to submit a bid and doesn’t want them to get frustrated and give up working for Guadalupe County. He says in the end, competition is good.
It’s beneficial for the taxpayer, beneficial for the contractor and beneficial for the county.
“But again, if I was on the outside, I may have some questions but there has been a very thorough process that has been going through that Commissioner Engelke talked about. It’s definitely a group of people involved that sat down and went and scored these bids, sat down with the contractors and we had a long discussion after the interviews about why things ended up this way just from a scoring standpoint, so I think we are at a point where at least I’m personally comfortable with he process, comfortable with the outcome and ready to move forward
Guadalupe County Commissioner Greg Seidenberger says for anyone questioning, the action was based on results of the question/answer format and on the heavily weighed interview.
“There are challenges when you are doing a remodel or remake of a building. When you go from the ground up, you have the site preparation. You have everything brand new but when you try to remodel, you run into all kinds of unexpected issues — even the best laid plans. So, I think the Koehler Company has really demonstrated in past projects their unique ability to renovate and to address issues that come up with really creative solutions and I think that is worthy of the points assessed,” said Seidenberger.
Commissioner Judy Cope says after the final tabulation, the process clearly showed what the local company would bring to the table.
“I agree, they have done good jobs for us in the past. They have been there when we needed them and like you said, we are going by the scores that people up here in the court were not involved in. So, this was a fair and equal process and I believe we should go with the Koehler Company since it is the top scoring company,” said Cope.
Next in line in the total scoring of the bidding process was Crownhill Builders, Inc. They followed the Koehler’s Company’s 92 points with 91 points.
Commissioner Drew Engelke says he’s confident in the process and believes all measures to ensure the best builder possible were taken.
“As we sit up here as a commissioner’s court, we see the tabulations. We see the numbers and as you said, it’s what you see here and somebody may question that, but you have to, at least I do, trust the committee to go through the process, be very thorough and objective and your recommendations are typically after a thorough process of the interview. Like you said, you took the top two and went through that process of objective questions that were uniform across the board and so not being a part of the process personally, we have to sit up here an listen to your advice and your recommendations for the Koehler Company as they came out on top through the whole process,” said Engelke.
Initially, the hope was to have the Veterans Center ready by this year’s Veterans Day. The new projected completion date is expected to be announced once county officials get a chance meet with the new contractor.