by Garth Meyer
Construction of two new fire stations and a new police station in Redondo Beach took a step forward at the July 15 City Council meeting with the selection of Griffin Structures to guide the strategic planning.
The firm built the new fire station in Manhattan Beach two years ago.
For Redondo Beach, they will act as the city’s central point of contact to assemble a team of architects, contractors, utility companies, testing agencies, and financial institutions to ensure the work is done on time and within budget.
“We are very excited about this first phase. It’s a quick phase, but it’s a very meaningful one,” said City Manager Mike Witzansky. “It’s what will set the tone for how we will design and construct these buildings.”
The city sent out a request for proposals in February. It received 11 submissions and invited four firms to interview.
Griffin Structures was the unanimous choice of an evaluation committee – made up of representatives of the Redondo Beach police and fire departments, public works, and city treasurer’s office. Mayor Jim Light also reviewed the top four proposals and concurred with the committee’s recommendation.
City staff cited the company’s “strong track record of success on similar projects, its seasoned project team, extensive Southern California experience and “competitive pricing proposal.”
The work will include sequencing and determining temporary facilities for police and fire personnel and equipment.
The strategic planning phase is to run 16 weeks. The cost to hire Griffin is not to exceed $150,000.
Once the phase is complete, city staff will brief the council in late November or early December.
“There isn’t anything more important in our current workload than this,” Witzansky said. “This is a very big milestone in this process.”
Leonard Marshall, a Griffin project executive, spoke to the city council at the July 15 meeting, largely about the firm’s recent work on the new Manhattan Beach fire station two.
The company was also hired by Redondo Beach last year to consult on its bond measure request for $93 million, which was approved by 71% of voters in November.
Redondo Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr., asked Marshall how confident he was in the contingency levels built into the bond total —- 10% for new construction and 20% for renovations – in this “post-tariff, post-inflation” environment.
“We are confident, based on similar projects, that we’re within the bandwidth. Of course the longer you delay things the worse it’s going to get,” Marshall said. “We are very experienced in cost-estimating and forecasting.”
Councilman Scott Behrendt asked Marshall about the reasons for the Manhattan Beach fire station project being delayed three months.
Marshall answered that it was a “technicality about height. A slight discrepancy between what was approved by the planning commission and what was built.”
“We didn’t lose anything operationally. It was more of an inconvenience,” he said, saying the added cost was “within the 10 percent contingency.”
“This is a pertinent project and delays are key,” Behrendt said of the coming Redondo Beach work, “And claims can be large and we have a very large thing happening here.”
“The actual delivery was a dealt hand,” Marshall said. “We are going to make suggestions about other delivery methods. A lot of issues can be caught early…”
Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr. made the motion to hire Griffin, Councilman Chadwick Castle seconded it and the vote was 5-0.
Griffin will not be a contender to build the Redondo police and fire stations.
“They will be instrumental in helping the city assemble those teams, but Griffin will not be bidding to build the project,” said Luke Smude, assistant to the city manager. “They will facilitate the project process to ensure we have a team that can help the city meet the goals and timeline developed in the strategic planning phase in a cost-efficient manner.”
City staff estimates the pre-construction phase will cost 15% of the $93 million bond.
The first buildings to go up are likely the new police station and one of the fire stations, amounting to $47 million to $50 million of the total.
The next part of construction would be the second fire station and renovation of the police annex building by Redondo Union High School.
Estimates for these come to $30 to 35 million.
City staff anticipates that all four Measure FP projects will be finished within four to six years. ER
One Response
what a ridiculous WATE of money for a new police station. If they could manage their people effectively and maybe do their jobs without lying and being the criminals they really are – that might be different. The level of crime in Redondo Beach is the highest from within the police department. It starts with the chief and the entire administration. The level of corruption is unbelievably off the charts and the community is who truly pays. When people who destrpy families by fabricating evidrnce and locking up innocent people – THAT is criminal, but the city endorses it and actually REWARDS it by promoting those who hurt the community the worst. If you spend 29 years “serving” the community as an honorable police officer, thats noteworthy…but if that “serving” the community is lying under oath, fabricating evidence and seeing to it that the very citizens you serve are denied their right to due process….well that’s criminal and as far as I’m concerned when the police commit those crimes they need to be punished 10x as severely as the regualr citizens would be. Police are trusted with the power to take lives and with that power comes a great responsibility and compensation – when that is abused, they need the punishment to be SEVERE and SWIFT. No more gicing the dirty cops a free pass…THEY are what is wrong with the criminal justice system and until this problem is addressed things will never get better.