Sunday, April 23, 2023

Animal Shelter "Under Construction"


Animal Shelter rehabilitation is underway according to the City of San Angelo website.  Shelter volunteers who work with dogs are unaware of this given their comments at Thursday's Animal Shelter Advisory Committee meeting.   

The information (pictured above) came from the city's capital improvement projects section of its website.  Two months ago this same page showed a $345,000 project.  It changed to just over $1.6 million.  The software allows the CIP document to change midyear.  Prior CIP's are static PDF documents.

The CIP document implies that four steps have already been accomplished, proposal, design, issuance of an RFP (request for proposal), and selection of a vendor.  There is no bid document for shelter renovations on the city's purchasing website, so did the city skip the RFP phase of the process?   Also, there is room for a project timeline but that portion is currently empty.

In the initial Feb. 21st presentation on the project Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden said "the vendor" would help determine logistics regarding the removal of shelter animals as the project progresses over a 4 to 6 month time-frame. 

The city lists the person responsible for that operation as "project manager."  If construction is actually underway it would make more sense for someone other than the Shelter Chief to manage that effort?

The City has a construction management department headed by Al Torres.  

The construction manager performs assignments that include design development, development of bid specifications, evaluation of bid proposals, contract development and management, construction inspection and general contractor/construction manager duties. 

Mr. Torres never spoke at either City Council meeting where this borrowing was approved.  The item has not returned to Council since their March 21st meeting.

The city received the funds April 6th and will have use of them until August 15th.  It will be interesting to see the status of Shelter renovations when the funds become due. 

Update 5-15-23:  Staff will request funds from City Council for $118,471 for engineering design services for the rehabilitation of the existing Animal Shelter.  They recommend hiring Freese and Nichols which employs former Assistant City Manager Elizabeth Grindstaff.  The meeting will be held on May 17th.

Update 5-17-23:  City Council heard that shelter renovations are projected to be completed in January 2024.  They approved hiring Freese and Nichols for engineering design services and construction administration.

Update 9-27-23:  The City's Capital Improvement Plan has a 4-30-24 completion date for Animal Shelter renovations.  The project is yet to be bid on the city's purchasing website.

Update 3-7-24:  The latest schedule information is:
....the bid phase is delayed to May 2024 with estimated construction completion in November 2024.

Update 8-9-24:  The City is yet to seek bids for Animal Shelter renovations. 

Update 12-3-24:  Mr. Torres informed City Council that an electrical change order is needed for the permanent shelter renovation.  Morgan will bring that change order to Council on December 17th.  Once approved the engineers need four weeks to complete the redesign.  The project can then go out for bid.  Construction is expected to begin in February 2025 and will take six to nine months to complete.  The temporary shelter is expected to be completed prior to construction starting on main shelter operations.  

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