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City staff seeks emergency contract to replace HVAC at Republic Municipal Justice Center
Summary
City purchasing director told Pueblo City Council staff recommends an emergency cooperative purchase with Trane to replace the failing HVAC system at the Republic Municipal Justice Center, citing repeated breakdowns, expensive repairs and long lead times for parts.
Naomi Hedden, the city's director of purchasing, told the Pueblo City Council at its July 14 work session that staff is treating replacement of the HVAC at the Republic Municipal Justice Center as an emergency and seeks authority to use an existing Omnia cooperative agreement with Trane to get equipment ordered quickly.
Hedden said the justice center houses police, fire dispatch, municipal court and critical IT infrastructure and that system outages disrupt multiple city services. "If the system goes down, all of that stops," she said, and added the existing equipment has required repeated repairs and is past its effective life.
Hedden said the existing HVAC "went down 26 times in 2024, 4 times this year," that the city has paid "over $120,000 in just 2 repairs," and that some replacement parts have had long lead times — in one case she said staff waited seven months for a manufactured compressor. She told council the city's contract for design work with Bridges and Paxton (approved previously for $175,000) puts the project far enough along that ordering equipment now would shorten overall delivery and installation time.
The purchasing director described the Omnia cooperative agreement as a commonly used procurement vehicle the city has used before for large equipment; she cited a prior emergency HVAC purchase for the SRDA in 2020 as a precedent. Hedden said using Omnia and Trane would allow the city to order equipment immediately, with a 15–20 week lead time, and argued that relying on the cooperative contract could reduce cost and procurement time compared with opening a full competitive bid now.
Council members asked several procedural and risk-management questions. Councilor Flores asked whether the city could negotiate an extended warranty; Hedden said two years is typical for projects of this size but that she would investigate options for a longer warranty. Councilor Martinez asked how often the city has used emergency procurement in Hedden's 27 years; she said only a handful of incidents reached similar scale, and cited SRDA as the last comparable emergency.
Councilor Maestri pressed on transparency and contract structure, asking whether Trane would be selected before the city had a final guaranteed maximum price. Hedden said Bridges and Paxton are familiar with the equipment size needed and that the city would not sign a construction contract until a price is in hand; she said staff expects a proposal within a matter of weeks and that the proposal would be brought back to council. Councilors also asked that staff ensure appropriate insurance, professional-liability protections and contractual language to protect the city if design or equipment performance proves deficient.
Hedden said the city's previous experience with cooperative agreements has been positive and that Trane is a reputable manufacturer with a local presence that would enable quicker response. She emphasized that the replacement is not a discretionary project but a time-sensitive emergency given equipment age, repeated failures and risks to critical city operations.
Council did not vote during the work session; Hedden said she would return with contract documents and additional warranty and insurance information for council review within days.
