By Renee Worthing
Register Reporter
   Sanford’s Public Works Director and Town Engineer Charles Andreson is taking a different approach to finding a contractor for a new Springvale Fire Station and a new public works building on School Street.
   Andreson said the procurement of the contractor will be a “qualifications-based selection” rather than the typical “low-bid” approach of awarding a contractor the projects.
   “When we get down to guaranteed maximum price, that is the point at which we will take a hard look at the dollars,” he said.
   Andreson said the town will issue a request for proposal (RFP) from contractors who are experienced in designing building concepts.
   “We’ll provide them the basic parameters in the request for proposal and also provide them with our budget appropriation for each of the projects,” Andreson said.
   He said the individual contractors will submit their proposals, which will explain their qualifications.
   “They will be interviewed by a selection committee who will evaluate their qualifications and the proposals. The selection committee will decide which is the preferred contractor,” Anderson said.
   He said each bidder will also submit two envelopes – one outlining the lump sum fee for pre-construction services; the second will hold a construction management fee for the construction phase. It will be reflected as a percentage of the cost of the work.
   “These two envelopes will only be opened when we select the contractor we are going to negotiate with,” Andreson said. “Those (envelopes) will be the basis of the negotiations with the selected contractor.”
   He said if the town is unable to reach a negotiation with that contractor, the selection committee would move to the “next favored contractor” and follow the same process.
   “Once a construction manager has been selected, he will work with the town to design the project in detail and to obtain local and state permits,” Andreson said.
   He said after completing this phase, the contractors will provide a guaranteed maximum price to the town.
   If the maximum price does not fall within the town’s parameters, “the town walks away from the deal,” Andreson said. He said there will be no cost obligations to the contractor.
   “They have to understand the scope of the project before they start and be confident they can deliver a project to the town that will meet the parameters for each of the projects,” Anderson said.
   If they fail to do that, the town does not have to appropriate any more money for the project.
   However it the maximum guarantee price meets the guidelines and the town decides not to proceed, the town would be obligated to pay the contractor for their documented incurred costs for the detail design and permitting work, Andreson said.
   “The concept here is they get paid for design and permitting as part of the fees for the construction of the project,” he said. “We avoid the upfront costs of doing the detail design, coming up with a project that we may to go to bid on, find out the bid price, as frequently happens with these buildings, exceeds our budget and have to go back and pay to redesign the building and scale things back.”
   He said the intent was for the town to get as much as possible for the money budgeted by having the company doing the construction to be involved in the project design. He said the RFP will also require the contractors to competitively bid subcontracted work.
   “They must have three bids and must share those bids with town,” he said. “That’s how the town can control pricing and be sure that things are competitively bid.”
   He said the town knows what the per -square -foot pricing should be and will evaluate the reasonable costs.
   “If there is a large discrepancy, we can react accordingly by walking away from project or continue to refine the design and scale the project back until we have a project that meets the price parameters that we need,” Andreson said.