The Seal Beach City Council last week unanimously approved an amendment to the city’s contract with Simplus Management to oversee the pier repair project.
The associate engineer overseeing the project for the Seal Beach told the City Council last week that the project is currently on schedule and within budget. The project is scheduled to be completed by Memorial Day.
The contract amendment with Simplus is for more than $109,000. Assistant City Manager Patrick Gallegos reminded the Sun this week that the money is for Simplus Management’s fee “and is not an increase to the overall estimated Project Cost. The exact number is $109,049.73.”
The council also unanimously approved an amendment to the city budget, re-allocating money from various funds to the pier project. There was a $600,000 increase to the Water budget, a $150,000 decrease from the Tidelands fund, and a $450,000 decrease from the Sewer budget, according to Gallegos.
According to the April 22 staff report by Associate Engineer David Spitz, the Simplus contract amendment is necessary because the project is complex and because “a series of unforeseen events” has brought Simplus near their original budget of $596,220 for the project. Spitz is running the pier improvement project for the city.
Simplus is managing the construction project. The actual construction is being done by John S. Meek Company, Inc.
The pier repair and improvement project is scheduled to be completed by end of May.
“Some improvements are attributed to the May 2016 pier fire, and others were related to aging infrastructure,” according to the Spitz report.
At the time the city awarded the pier repair construction project, the estimated cost of the project was almost $8.4 million (rounded), based on the April 22 Spitz report.
“The City and the City’s insurance carrier determined the responsible party for each construction bid item as it relates to fire damage and aging infrastructure. It was mutually agreed that the City would be responsible for 42.79 percent of all project related costs, while the Insurance Company would be responsible for 57.21 percent. The Insurance Company will reimburse the City its due portion upon project completion,” according to the Spitz report.
Gallegos said in an email this week that “[t]hese percentages have and will continue to adjust as change conditions arise,”
According to a table in the Spitz report, that means Seal Beach will pay more than $3.5 million (rounded) and the insurance provider will reimburse Seal Beach the rest of the money.
“Upon project completion, all project expenditures will be reconciled and a detailed final project cost analysis will be presented before the City Council. However, as construction has progressed, the City and the Contractor have encountered numerous situations that have resulted in the need to change portions of the project scope that were not originally included as a part of the design,” the April 22 report said.
For example: “Part of the project included removing part of the existing waterline in the parking lot to relocate around the new Edison Transformer. However, once construction started on that waterline relocation, other sections of the line connecting to it started failing, mostly due to age and wear and tear. In the best interest of the surrounding structures and the new water lines on the pier, the City replaced the rest of the waterline system at the base of the pier including the back flow preventers, numerous valves and the laterals into the structures.” According to the report, this purchase change order cost $155,297.81.
As previously reported, the repair project is designed to make the pier strong enough to hold a restaurant building but does not currently include a restaurant building.
That said, an April 22 staff report on the city’s Strategic Plan said that staff is scheduled by Sept. 11 of this year to “bring to council for consideration a series of workshops focused on discussion over potential for pier restaurant in the second quarter.”
Other pier news
One of the goals spelled out in the city’s Strategic Plan is to “Study to evaluate cost and scope of restoration of pier base” by Sept. 11.
“The term pier base is referring to the concrete portion at the start of the pier which leads up to the wood constructed portion,” wrote Assistant City Manager Gallegos in an April 29 email to the Sun.
“The concrete pier base was constructed roughly 80 years ago and is starting to show its age. The primary source of this damage is a result of the marine environment and of course the overall age of the structure. The proposed study would be to perform a detailed structural evaluation of the pier base and determine the best options to repair and renovate the aging concrete surface. The recommendation from this study could then be used to create a bid package that would be advertised for competitive construction bids to perform this restoration work. Lastly, this work is separate from the current pier improvement project which is scheduled to be completed by Memorial Day,” wrote Assistant City Manager Gallegos.
