Delegating decision expedites new hall tender process

The Cromwell Community Board has agreed to progress the design tender process for the planned new memorial hall and events centre in the town in a bid to ‘‘get on with it’’.

To do that the board had to approve delegation of authority to the council’s chief executive for awarding the design tender, to speed things up.

There was little deliberation by the board as it agreed to that at a meeting held in Cromwell yesterday and live-streamed. Members agreed the matter was procedural.

The tender had to be within the previously approved Cromwell Memorial Hall/Events Centre budget of $2.2million from Cromwell general reserves. It had already been approved for the design as part of the Cromwell masterplan and was included in year one of the council’s 2021-31 long-term plan.

In his report, Central Otago District Council project manager property Darren Penketh revisited the decisions made on the project so far and the steps still to be taken.

The request for proposal for the architectural services stage was on the market with a submissions deadline of November 1.

Once that process closed, the next step was to select and engage an architect to design the building.

During long-term plan submissions, the Cromwell community made clear its desire for the council to work fast on the project, Mr Penketh said in his report.

Evaluating tenders would take about four weeks, between November 2 and 30 and included shortlisting submissions, presentations on design methodology and understanding project scope.

As tender evaluation would close after the board’s November 23 meeting, its final meeting before Christmas, no award could be made until 2022.

For this reason it was recommended to delegate authority to award the tender to the council’s chief executive before Christmas, with the goal of making the deadline of starting construction by July 2022 more easily reached.

No design aspects would be finalised as part of this process, and the resolution did not seek to delegate design approval to the chief executive.

jared.morgan@odt.co.nz


 

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement