Seven pre-qualified bidders have received packages for the renovation of South Orange Village Hall. Proposals and bids are due Jan. 22, 2015.
Meanwhile, a parallel request for proposals for the sale and adaptive re-use of the historic Village Hall has elicited interest from some parties.
Village Administrator Barry Lewis updated the South Orange Board of Trustees on the RFPs at their meeting on November 24: “As of Thursday [we] are officially out to bid for the Village Hall renovations,” said Lewis.
“You recall we went through a pre-qualification process so ‘out to bid ‘means to those pre-qualified contractors of which there were seven total so they’ve all been sent the bidding package,” added Lewis. “It is not open to other contractors who did not go through that process.”
Regarding the January 22 deadline, Lewis said, “To the extent there are clarifications or addenda that have to be issued, the law requires — depending on when that is — you may have to set that receipt date back, but we won’t know that unless they come to us with certain questions or interpretations.”
“At the same time we continue to have out there and again in parallel the RFP for the potential adaptive reuse. We’ve had some interest. The marketing consultant has sent out some stuff…. We have had inquiries and have actually given some tours to potentially interested parties.”
“What types of organizations or companies did you give tours to?” asked Trustee Deborah David Ford.
Lewis said he would need to share that information offline due to competitive contract negotiation issues.
Lewis clarified that the responses for the Village Hall sale and adaptive re-use were due on the last Tuesday of December.
