Another city deal comes under fire
Bid for 375th anniversary project is 32% above estimate for work
The first time the city went to tenders last year to award a contract to install decorative limestone blocks in front of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for the city’s 375th anniversary, no one submitted a bid.
No bidders responded the second time either.
And the third time the city issued the call for tenders, this past January, it received one bid — which was 32 per cent above the city’s estimated price.
The city executive committee approved the contract to the sole bidder, Les Terrassements Multi-Paysages Inc., for its price of $350,961, taxes and contingencies included, at a meeting last week. Now it will go to city council for final approval on March 27.
While it’s a relatively small amount among the multimilliondollar contracts the city has awarded for projects for this year’s 375th anniversary of the city’s founding, opposition Projet Montréal party says the case is emblematic of how the city has managed by its own doing to drive up the cost of projects to mark the anniversary.
“It’s a small file, but it illustrates the city’s improvisation with the 375th anniversary,” Projet Montréal councillor Émilie Thuillier said.
“Instead of asking themselves why they didn’t get any bids, and if something needs to be changed, they held a third call for tenders in the middle of winter.”
Several 375th-anniversary contracts have been 20 per cent or more over estimate. Last May, for example, the city approved a $3.45-million contract in which it’s paying double the going price of granite to install granite rest stops on Mount Royal for the 375th anniversary. The overall contract is 27 per cent above the city’s estimate.
The civil service reports on the 375th anniversary contracts have explained the high prices as a result of the city’s short deadline, a scarcity of suppliers driving up the cost of certain material and a lack of competition because contractors are busy with other city construction work.
However, the administration of Mayor Denis Coderre says the limestone blocks are a necessary element of a larger project to redevelop the area between the museum and Concordia University on de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
“I think Projet Montréal’s claim that it’s a sign of improvisation is in fact everything to the contrary,” city executive committee member Lionel Perez said. The city first went to tenders in March 2016 for delivery this year, which shows that it was planning ahead, he said.
“Unfortunately, we can’t control the marketplace,” Perez said.
The city says 32 limestone pieces are to be installed under the contract, some of them on the south side of a block of Sherbrooke St. W., between Bishop and Crescent Sts., and most of them along a block of Bishop St., between Sherbrooke and De Maisonneuve.
A civil service report on the contract calls the pieces “decorative mineral elements,” some of which will “serve as emblematic urban furniture” and some as pedestals for works of art that are to be loaned by the Museum of Fine Arts for installation on public property.
The report says the blocks will be similar to pieces that were installed on the north side of Sherbrooke in 2012 in a first phase of the project. The existing pieces are flat, rectangular and grey, and some of them are angled. Some pieces are grouped around trees, while one piece is embedded and displays a sculpture.
However, Thuillier noted that the report has a section listing previous contracts and decisions related to the project, but doesn’t mention who supplied the limestone pieces for the first phase in 2012 or at what price.
The report says the single bid received for the limestone pieces in response to the third call for tenders was more than $77,000, or 32 per cent, above the city’s estimate. The report says the price is higher than expected probably because the city is only giving the entrepreneur six weeks to deliver the goods and because it’s being asked to supply limestone in winter.
“The city should have cancelled,” Thuillier said. “If in 2016, the city held two calls for tender during the appropriate time of the year for such things and it got no bids, then maybe there’s a problem with what they’re asking for.”
In fact, the civil service report says seven firms expressed interest in the third call for bids by purchasing the tenders package. However, the report says four of those potential bidders dropped out because they said they couldn’t supply what the city wanted.
However, Perez said the firms dropping out demonstrates the pieces are specialized and that perhaps the city’s estimate was too low “because of the specialty of the request.”
The city sought to maintain the look of the existing pieces on Sherbrooke and use special material because of the proximity of the museum, he said.
“I think people understand that. We are a cultural city. It is in front of one of our most important cultural, iconic buildings.”
The city also says the $350,000 contract is just seven per cent of the over-all project price tag of $5.1 million.
However, Thuillier said special means more expensive.
“We’re asking for things for the 375th anniversary that are so special that we’re asking entrepreneurs for the moon,” she said. “And it’s so much more expensive.”