Metro weighing bids to manage head office

Favoured $2.6M pitch the costliest of four proposals

Metro Vancouver’s board will consider on Friday whether to award a $2.6-million three-year propertymanagement contract for its new head office.

The regional district moved into its new building, located in Burnaby’s Metrotower III, a few blocks from its old head office, in January.

Metro purchased the building from Invanhoe Cambridge for $205 million in late 2015, and that company has managed the building ever since.

The property-management contract was worth $2.95 million over three years.

After selling Metrotowers I and II, Ivanhoe Cambridge approached Metro about terminating the Metrotower III propertymanagement agreement.

Metro Vancouver tried to negotiate with the new owners of the other towers, but was unsuccessful and issued a request for proposals on March 19.

The bid for $2.6 million, from Colliers International, was the highest of four proposals received. Transpacific’s bid was $2.3 million, Avison Young’s was $1.9 million and Warrington PCI bid $1.8 million.

After an evaluation by a staff committee, Colliers was ranked the highest because its proposal “contains additional value added items, a larger building presence, a stronger back office team and local resources that will enable Metro Vancouver to decrease overall costs through the long term transfer of internal property management tasks to our provider.”

The report stated that the second-place proposal, from Avison Young, would be more than the Colliers proposal if it was amended to provide the same internal savings.

“Colliers’ proposal was the only one that contained in-house technical expertise and experience with managing a Triple A LEED Platinum building,” said Metro Vancouver spokesman Don Bradley.

The report did not outline how much Metro would be able to save, something finance and intergovernmental committee member Malcolm Brodie said at a meeting last week should be specified.

Bradley was unable to provide information about how much Metro will decrease its overall costs.

Committee chairman Raymond Louie asked what effect the deal may have on internal staffing and asked what the union repercussions would be.

That matter was discussed during a closed portion of the meeting.

If the contract is awarded to Colliers, there is an option for two additional three-year terms at a total cost of $8.2 million.

The board will consider the proposal at a meeting on Friday.