Commissioners approve moving shoring cost into demolition budget for Port Haw Square project

Commissioner Janice moved and the board voted to move the cost of shoring a retaining wall from the build budget into the demolition budget for the Port Haw Square parking garage and office-tower project, after staff said the shift was required because the work had been publicly bid. The motion passed on a 2-1 roll call vote.

The decision followed staff explanation that leaving the tower and returning later to demolish the garage would have required the contractor to remobilize and added about $300,000 to the project. "If we would, just taken down the tower and come back to the to, demo the parking garage, it would've it would've been a $300,000 add to the project for the comp for the contractor to come out and remobilize to demo up the, garage portion," a staff member said.

Staff described two budget categories for the same overall project: a demolition budget and a build budget. They said the shoring of the wall had been treated as the first stage of the build work but that engineers and procurement considerations supported moving that scope into the demolition contract. "So this was explained to me that there are 2 budgets that we're talking about. We're talking about a demo budget, and we're talking about a build budget. This was the shoring of the wall was the first stage of the build budget. And now we're moving it from the build budget to the demo budget. Is that accurate?" a commissioner asked; a staff member confirmed.

Staff also recounted the project's historic demolition budgeting. "We had, I think the original demo budget was, the original demo, budget for the entire project was $4,000,000, I do believe. We awarded it, for 1.5," a staff member said. Another staff speaker noted that because the demolition and build scopes were each publicly bid, the board could not simply reassign funds between those public procurements and therefore needed to vote to place the money in the demolition budget.

A meeting official said the structural engineer had recommended proceeding with the approach now adopted. The transcript did not record the exact motion language; the meeting record shows Commissioner Janice offered the motion, a commissioner seconded it, and the roll call was: Mister Magie, No; Miss Janice, Yes; Mister Sherman, Yes. The clerk then closed public comment and adjourned the meeting.

Discussion items included the $300,000 remobilization estimate, the stated original demolition budget of $4,000,000 (with an awarded demolition contract figure spoken as $1.5 million), and the procurement constraint that publicly bid work cannot be moved between bid packages without board action. No specific follow-up tasks, revised contract numbers, or revised total project budget were recorded in the provided transcript portion.

The vote transfers the shoring scope and associated funds into the demolition contract; the transcript does not specify whether the board also authorized a contract modification, the exact dollar amount to be transferred, or a timeline for completing the shifted work.