The contract to manage the City’s seven sports and entertainment venues could soon include one fewer facility.
The City has notified Global Spectrum and SMG, the two companies that hope to earn the contract, that it “may decide that it is in their best interest” to remove the Equestrian Center from the scope of the contract originally presented.
A letter from City Procurement Division Chief Greg Pease to Larry Wilson, SMG Jacksonville general manager, and Todd Glickman, Global vice president, indicates the City’s potential decision.
As currently written, the request for proposal the two companies responded to includes EverBank Field, the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, the Osborn Center and the Ritz Theatre, as well as the Equestrian Center.
In addition to the possible removal, the City also will issue a separate request for information and/or request for proposal “to explore other opportunities with respect to the operational and maintenance activities of the Equestrian Center,” according to the Aug. 8 letter.
Pease said in an interview that no firm decision had been made as to whether a request for information or request for proposals would be issued, but that City officials are leaning toward the former.
A response for information, instead of proposals, would allow the City to seek new ideas on how the facility could and should be maintained and operated. He said the division would also “cast the widest net possible” when the City sends information about either request, hoping to receive responses from interested organizations.
“We hope to see innovative ideas,” Pease said.
Pease also said that if the ideas and proposals were not acceptable to the City, the facility could remain in the original contract for negotiations.
A City committee Aug. 15 accepted a subcommittee recommendation to make Global the preferred candidate to send to Mayor Alvin Brown for selection and to begin fee and contract negotiations.
SMG, the No. 2 candidate on the list, was denied a protest during the same meeting.
Brown is on the clock to make a selection, with the choice able to enter fee and contract negotiations, where the Equestrian Center would likely be stripped.
Pease said he was unsure of Brown’s decision timeline. David DeCamp, Brown’s communications director, said Wednesday the decision is still in the procurement process.
The recent developments involving the facility have been welcome news to district City Council member Doyle Carter, who has been an advocate for the equestrian center’s removal from the contract for some time.
“I’ve said all along we did not want it in there and it didn’t work very well,” Carter recently said.
He said he has been working on a solution toward the center’s long-term success since March 2011, but has not always had timely cooperation from Brown’s administration.
In April and by way of resolution, Council demanded the center have a separate request for proposal when the facilities management contract had yet to be narrowed.
“There are a lot of entities out there that can do a better job,” Carter said then.
Past Councils have criticized the facility’s funding in relation to its contributions, with Carter last year asking his colleagues for one year to find a solution. Finding a manager more suited to the industry would make it more profitable and keep it off the chopping block each year, he said.
“We need to get it to where everyone knows it’s going to be open for the long term,” Carter said.
SMG has operated the facility since it opened in 2004 and though Carter said it “has not always been run effective,” he praised the recent uptick in bookings and direction he sees the City taking.
“I think it can be a major accomplishment,” he said.
Council member John Crescimbeni, who introduced the April resolution, said the administration’s indication to extract it from the current proposal is a start.
“It will be progress when it happens, but it is certainly not speedy progress,” Crescimbeni recently said.
Carter said he would hope to have a resolution by the first quarter of calendar year 2013, which will fall past the approval of a new budget for the Oct. 1 start of fiscal 2012-13.
Carter and Crescimbeni had a meeting about the center July 31, before the City’s decision. Carter expressed concern with the progress to that point, with budget hearings again looming.
Crescimbeni said during the meeting that he, as an individual Council member, would not put the center under budget scrutiny this year given the lack of cooperation with the administration on the subject.
The center, along with the rest of the entertainment facilities, will be discussed by the Council Finance Committee during its budget hearing Friday.
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