Council approves RFP for owner's representative for Middleton Community Campus

The Middleton Common Council approved a draft request for proposals on Aug. 18 to hire an owner's representative/construction management firm to guide the Community Campus project from architect selection through occupancy.

Administrator Brian Gatau explained the purpose: "The purpose of this RFP is to have a professional or firm assist the city with kind of managing the project from selection of architect all the way through project closeout and occupancy of the building." Councilors debated procurement safeguards and the anti‑lobbying clause; the city attorney clarified that casual, unrelated contacts (for example, seeing an applicant at a grocery store) would not disqualify a bidder so long as the communication did not concern the procurement.

Alder Myers proposed, and the council adopted, an amendment to Section 5.3 changing "strategies for maintaining the $100 million total project budget" to "strategies for not exceeding the $100 million total project budget," which the council incorporated before approving the RFP. Staff said the RFP will be issued in the coming days and that subsequent RFPs for architecture and engineering will follow.