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City Council briefed on schedule for boat slips
By LESTER R. DAILEY
| Article published on Thursday, April 19, 2007 |
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CLEARWATER – Now that the voters have approved a 129-slip downtown marina, city officials are anxious to get started on the project. At its April 16 work session, the City Council was briefed about the projected timeline for the work.
A “design criteria package” will be finished by July, and the design will be finalized by December. The permitting process will take all of next year. Construction is expected to start in January 2009 and take seven months.
“The agencies that will be involved are many,” replied David Gildersleeve of the Wade Trim engineering firm, contractor for the project, when asked why the permitting process will take so long. “That’s why it will take a year.”
The state Department of Environmental Protection, the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are among the many agencies that must sign off on the environmental aspects of the project. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must certify that the marina meets its navigational criteria and has the proper setback from the Intracoastal Waterway.
The state Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, must be convinced that no historical or archeological artifacts will be damaged during the construction. The U.S. Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must also give their approval to the project. Given the number of agencies involved, Gildersleeve believes that a year is actually a short time to get all the necessary permits.
“We’ve avoided environmental impacts to the maximum degree, so I don’t think there are any issues that will slow down the process,” he said. “We should get through it in a year.”
The marina will be the city’s first major project using the recently adopted “design-build” process. Instead of hiring separate contractors for each step of the process, a single “design-build team” takes the project from initial feasibility studies to final construction.
“It’s a good delivery method that allows you to hire a designer-builder not solely based on price,” Tom Brezinski of Wade Trim told the council, adding that such criteria as experience and reputation also can be considered.
The marina project is ideal for “design-build,” Brezinski said, because it is an uncomplicated project, requiring few decisions. The design of the marina and type of concrete floating docks to be used have already been determined. He estimated that, by using “design-build” instead of more traditional methods, staff time on the project will be reduced by 25 percent.
Margie Simmons, the city’s finance director, briefed the council on the financial aspects of the $11 million project. The council members were thrilled that a $1.2 million grant, recently received from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to pay 25 percent of the cost of the transient docking facilities at the marina, will reduce the debt service costs of the marina by more than $2 million over the 20-year life of its bonds.
“I don’t want to issue the bonds until we get through the permitting process,” Simmons said, adding that, to reduce underwriting costs, the marina bonds will be issued at the same time as the bonds to finance the Beach Walk road makeover on Clearwater Beach.
At its April 19 meeting, it is anticipated that the council will pass a measure that will allow the city to advance whatever start-up costs are needed to get the project rolling before the bond issue is floated, and reimburse itself once the bonds are issued.
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Article published on Thursday, April 19, 2007
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