South Lake Tahoe's new recreation center project to be delayed one year after council rejects bids

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - During the South Lake Tahoe City Council's meeting on Tuesday, the council voted to reject all bids for the Recreation and Aquatics Center project in the center of town.

A public bid opening for the second phase of the project was held on October 24, 2022. The City's Public Works department, in coordination with their pre-construction team SierraCon/CORE had estimated the cost of this phase would be approximately $52M.

When the project was put out for bid, 570 contractors registered on the bid website to look, 16 downloaded documents to bid, and then just two bids were received by the deadline.

The lowest was 12 percent over that original estimate and was made by ACC Contractors Inc., of Azusa, Calif. Their bid was $59,400,000.

The other bid received was from Bobo Construction Inc. out of Elk Grove, Calif. It was $10M over the ACC bid at $69,926,610 and out of the City's fiscal capacity.

After receiving the Notice of Intent to Award from the City, ACC Contractors provided a notice of withdrawal of their bid citing a clerical error, only to rescind that withdrawal after the Council's agenda to reject all bids was published.

A representative from ACC Contractors called into Tuesday night's council meeting, explaining they had a clerical error that caused the withdrawal and subsequent request to rescind that withdrawal.

Several members of the local Carpenter's Union spoke during the meeting, asking the council to start the bid process over, and there were suggestions to stipulate local hiring in the next year's bid requests.

The council voted to reject all bids under Public Contract Code section 20166.

Due to this, the second phase of construction will be delayed one year. This includes vertical construction, site work, and furniture. The first phase was recently completed. The recreation center project will go out to bid in 2023 for a construction start date of 2024.

“The Recreation and Aquatics Center will be built,” stated South Lake Tahoe City Manager Joe Irvin. “Phase I construction of the site, including ground clearance and utility work, was completed in October 2022. It is only the vertical construction that is delayed at this time due to multiple variables. Inflationary pressures, including the rise of goods and services, supply chain issues, and labor demands have increased the bid costs. Based on numerous sources, these variables are likely to improve over the next year.”

The City will also continue to accumulate Measure P funds of approximately $3 million per year, all of which go only to recreation in South Lake Tahoe.

The City of South Lake Tahoe, the Parks and Recreation Department, and the Measure P Committee are committed to the full execution of this critical infrastructure project as voted on by the community and are further committed to being responsible stewards of Measure P and other taxpayer dollars.