Power plant tender process begins again as city throws out previous bids.
The City of Austin, which last week was on the verge of hiring a construction company to dismantle the Holly Power Plant, has decided to throw out all bids for the project amid questions about why a relatively expensive proposal became the city’s preferred choice.
The contract to dismantle the plant will be rebid, and the city hopes to select a company by May 26 , according to a Thursday afternoon memo from Assistant City Manager Rudy Garza to the City Council. The memo also states that in weighing criteria such as the experience and expertise of the various companies, “there should have been greater emphasis on … the total cost of the project.”
But, the memo adds, “we have confirmed that the process (of ranking the bids) was in fact fair and equitable.”
The delay is the latest chapter in a long-running saga surrounding the now-decommissioned Holly Power Plant, an emblem to many East Austin residents of a city willing to trample the environment in minority communities. The hulking plant has been shuttered since 2007, and now residents must wait longer for their unwanted neighbor to disappear from the skyline.
The city staff did not grade the dismantling proposals based entirely on cost, as it does on most projects. Instead, the city, using a method it sometimes employs for complex projects, crafted a scoring matrix that also took into account factors such as a firm’s experience with Austin issues, its local business presence and its likelihood of finishing on time and on budget. City officials said the dismantling of a power plant in the middle of a residential neighborhood is complicated enough that other factors needed to be considered.
When all those factors were taken into account, TRC Environmental Corp. narrowly edged out Dixie Demolition . On a 115-point scale, the bids were separated by 0.64 of a point .
Dixie’s bid was $18.8 million . TRC Environmental’s bid was $6.1 million more. TRC Environmental’s higher score was based primarily on what the city staff believed was the company’s superiority in seven of the other categories measured.
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