by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The City is currently accepting bids for the design-build services for the new County Courthouse. Those bids are due no later than 2 p.m. on June 28.
After that, several City agencies including the mayor’s office, the judicial branch and Better Jacksonville Plan officials will pore over the bids in an effort to determine who will oversee and build the $140 million, 388,000 square-foot criminal courthouse. The new courthouse will serve the Fourth Judicial Circuit and house the judicial branch as well as the Clerk of the Courts, the State Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office and portions of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
A non-mandatory pre-proposal conference will be held June 13 at 10 a.m. in the courthouse site trailer. During that meeting, potential bidders will be able to ask City officials questions pertaining to the courthouse and the proposals.
The overall courthouse budget is $263.5 million of which $140.2 million is pegged for this phase. Whichever design-build firm is chosen will have to keep within the budget but also include design fees, construction services, furniture, fixtures and equipment, general conditions, construction costs, contingency and any and all other costs and fees.
Dave Schneider, a senior project manager in the City’s Public Works Department, said he hasn’t received any bids yet, but he does expect several companies to compete for the job. The bid specifications is a 99-page document that contains everything from a description of the project to audit provisions as well about 75 pages of attachments. All interested parties are required to submit an original bid along with eight copies.
Schneider, who also helped oversee the construction of the Veterans Memorial Arena and the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, said each bid will be graded on a 300-point system. Being local is one of the possible criteria, but it doesn’t weigh that heavily.
“Somebody who is really good and local would be a plus, but it’s not a requirement,” he said. “It’s worth 10 points out of 300. If there are two companies really close, that would be the tie-breaker.”
Once the bids have been received, Schneider said it will take until about mid-July to grade all the submissions. The City’s Competitive Sealed Proposal Evaluation Committee will review the bids and narrow the field to the top three, which will go through a round of open interviews. Schneider said the City expects to announce a winner in August.
Then the real fun begins. Schneider said it will take about a year to break ground on the facility. During that time, several things will happen regarding the project.
“We begin to negotiate and execute the contract and that will take until sometime in September,” said Schneider, adding that would actually be fairly quick for this type of contract negotiation.
By the end of December, the design-build company should have completed a site master plan for not just the criminal courthouse phase, but also the civil courthouse phase. The plans also have to have the approval of the Design Review Committee.
“We will start the schematic design process in January during which we will progress far enough to make sure the building is staying within budget,” said Schneider. “That will take about six months and take us into July. At that time, we will establish a guaranteed maximum price.”
All bids will be graded on the following nine criteria:
• Experience and competence in criminal courthouse design-build projects (1-50 points)
• Availability of adequate personnel, equipment and facilities (1-20)
• Financial responsibility (1-40)
• Past record of professional accomplishments (1-50)
• Volume of current and prior work for using agencies (1-10)
• Diversity (1-30)
• Proximity (1-10)
• Safety and environmental compliance (1-20)
• Innovation and work plan (1-70)