Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993 TAG: 9305290231
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By expanding the pool of potential bidders, they believe they can attract local and minority businesses to bid or negotiate on different parts of the project.
The city and Tech recently created a special team to help make sure local workers, subcontractors and suppliers get part of the work.
Friday, they provided more details on their strategy for accomplishing their goal.
A pre-bid meeting will be held June 7 to give businesses and contractors the information they need to be eligible to bid.
The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Roanoke Civic Center exhibit hall.
Firms wanting to renovate the hotel will be required to complete forms detailing their work history, experience, finances and other factors to determine if they are qualified to do the work for which they bid.
The goal is to "open up the [bidding process] and help ensure an equal playing field," said Alvin Nash, who is working to increase local participation in the hotel project, especially by small and minority businesses.
At the session next month, city officials also will provide an update on the project and an approximate construction schedule.
Officials will be available at next month's meeting to answer questions and refer companies to various sources for assistance in completing the pre-bid package.
The pre-bid meeting also is sponsored by Faison Associates - the developer - and the general contractors, F.N. Thompson of Charlotte, N.C., and J.M. Turner and Co., a Roanoke Valley firm. Thompson and Turner will determine which firms will qualify to bid.
Turner said there will be about 25 subcontractors and several hundred workers at the peak of construction.
Nash said he knows that some people, especially leaders of building trades unions, are skeptical that local union workers will get many jobs.
But he vowed to closely monitor the hiring and fight as hard as he can to get jobs for local workers. Nash said he will meet with union leaders to discuss the issue.
C.W. Toney, a union leader who has complained that union workers are being excluded from city projects, doubts that many union workers will be hired.
"I think everything has already been cut and dried on the hotel project," Toney said. "I think they are just trying to make the public believe they are doing what is right."
The unions' campaign for more jobs on city projects has been somewhat blunted, Toney said, because city officials have focused attention on getting local contractors and subcontractors for projects rather than local union workers.
Nash said he has worked with the Virginia Employment Commission to help track the number of local workers on the project. Through an agreement with the commission, a contractor that wins a bid can request qualified workers for the job. All hiring will be coordinated through the employment commission.
Nash said the city and Tech have not set quotas for local contractors and workers. "We don't want to limit it just to Roanoke [businesses and contractors], but we want it to have an impact on the community," he said.
City Manager Bob Herbert said the "price, quality and timing" of bids will be the main criteria in determining who gets the work. The timing is important because the project is on a tight schedule if it is to reopen by early 1995, he said.
by CNB