Contracts Awarded for Lansdale Arts Center, Municipal Complex Renovations

After much debate—and a failed majority vote to table four action items—Lansdale Borough Council Wednesday voted 7-2 to authorize a contract with Spiezle Architectural Group .

Council also voted 7-2 to authorize a contract with Spiezle for the design and renovation of 311 W. Main St.

The dissenting votes in both instances were Democratic Councilmen Jack Hansen and Rich DiGregorio Jr. 

Hansen also made the motion to table the votes related to 311 W. Main St. and the borough complex, seconded by DiGregorio Jr. The motion was defeated in a 7-2 roll call vote.

"I'm sitting here wondering why we’re having a special meeting tonight. We have a business meeting in two weeks where this would normally be handled," said Hansen. "We didn’t have it prepared two weeks ago. It doesn’t seem to make sense that we’re going to push this forward two weeks without more consideration of it."

Hansen said he respected Spiezle's facilities report.

"But it almost feels like no-bid contract," he said. "I don’t think any of us should be involved in that. We should move as far forward as we can to see to it that we get the best people and see if anyone else is out there."

Now, Spiezle will work on the design of two options for the renovation of Lansdale Borough Hall and the Lansdale Police Department.

Spiezle was previously hired by the borough, through a Request for Proposals process, .

Read more about the Spiezle borough complex contract here.

Prior to the vote, resident Bill Henning spoke up in opposition to hiring Spiezle for the job, and ultimately the destruction of Lansdale Borough Hall.

"I'm sorry, but it makes me a little nervous ... of seemingly handing off a project of this magnitude to a firm originally hired for a different project," Henning said. "You would think a project of this size would allow for more than one firm to look at it and make its proposal. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this project is being hurried along. I don’t know what the rush is. I assume it's not an election thing."

Henning called Spiezle a "reputable firm," and, if there was an RFP process for the design and renovations of all three properties, Spiezle would have a chance to win the contract.

"Whoever wins, we all would feel we have a competitive price, while other firms have the opportunity to submit their options and proposals," Henning said. "I don’t want this to become another art center architectural cluster----."

Henning said of the two options, Spiezle gets a higher compensation percentage of estimated costs for the option that saves the borough building in lieu of demolishing it.

"It is about a $50,000 difference. Demolishing this building and putting up a plaque shouldn't be an option," he said.

Chantilly Floral owner Marge Booz also spoke on all three properties.

"I'm not here to talk about this building," she said of borough hall. "As far as I'm concerned, it could go. There's so much wrong with it, it isn't even funny."

Booz thanked council for making an investment and moving forward on 311 W. Main St.

"We are grateful that borough council has the courage and the vision for adding to the foundation of our community and keeping lansdale in motion. We worked on 311 for a really long time, and I can attest to fact we have spent a lot of time with this. This community needs this more now than it has ever needed it," she said.

"The community needs a place where art, music and other things can be taken into consideration for everyone, not just here tonight, but the young people in community need a place to express themselves," she said. 

The Spiezle Debate

The biggest debate occurred after Hansen's motion to table the votes.

DiGregorio Jr. seconded the tabling, saying it would be nice to address the inspection demands and design demands in more detail.

"We need more perspective from Spiezle about what they propose," he said. "Tonight is a rush job by getting this motion through instead of getting other ideas. Spiezle did a nice job with the report: that was the contract and they did it. Another architect comes in, and they’re going to see the report we already have. That's a borough document. They can take that and put their ideas too."

Councilman Mike Sobel said this is not a rush job; it is a one-step process.

"There are no men sitting on bulldozers revving their engines. There’s no cranes out there ready to tear it down. This is step one," Sobel said.

He said that, as the chair of the 311 W. Main Task Force, his committee gave a business plan recommendation on what to do for the building. From there, the consutltant and Spiezle would work it out together. This includes looking at preserving the facade of 311 W. Main St.

"We will make sure Spiezle is doing what they are supposed to do. They already analyzed all this stuff and they figured out this is what we need to do or what they feel is right. They are a good firm that was vetted through," Sobel said. "It's not a rush job."

Councilman Dan Dunigan and Community Development Director John Ernst, who was acting in place of absent Borough Manager Timi Kirchner, both said the same thing: one professional will not assume the liability of another professional's report. Any new hired architect would complete a new and complete study, to be paid by Lansdale.

"We already covered the water that Spiezle is a well-qualified architectural firm. Now we're talking about whether we’re going too fast. We were ready two weeks ago with the exception of a couple things I wanted to hammer on in the contract," said Dunigan. He said, as chairman of the administration and finance committee, hammered on Speizle for specific things like the number of drawings, the timeline of the projects and total costs. 

Dunigan said the compensation for Spiezle is 6.35 percent of estimated costs, which is 35 percent from the bottom of what's considered reasonable by the Commonwealth Department of General Services. 

He said complexity of the construction for both parcels was also negotiated in the contracts over the last two weeks.

"As you can tell, this has really been rushed. I only spent days and days going through this," said Dunigan, sarcastically. "You had two weeks from the draft of the contracts, and now Rich and Jack want to say we’re rushing because they didn’t take the time to do their homework over the last two weeks."

Hansen said he and DiGregorio Jr. "just got the new contracts," but Dunigan said nothing has substantially changed from the originals.

"If you read them two weeks ago, you could have asked the exact same questions," Dunigan said. "We thought it was too quick, and we needed to hammer it out. At 4 p.m. in the afternoon (on Wednesday), you guys got questions. But that’s kind of the M.O." 

Dunigan said Lansdale has had a history of sitting around and doing nothing.

"We’ve got milk on the floor, and we can either stand around and look at it some more and love the smell, or we can get going. I'm in the get going crowd," Dunigan said. "That get going doesn’t commit me to spending any money."

Solicitor Joe Clement said his firm has "no discomfort" with the contracts. For those who had concerns that specificity was not in the 311 W. Main contract, it's because the program is not entirely developed yet. There is a whole design and approval process that needs to occur in the borough.

"We negotiated the termination of the contract at any point without cause," Clement said. "If the borough feels at any point it gets uncomfortable with what is happening with costs, the borough can terminate the contracts." 

Clement added the borough would only have to pay Spiezle for what was completed up to that point. He said the borough would also lose time, the price guarantee and Spiezle's quality of service, if it goes out to an RFP bid process.

Mayor Andy Szekely said the discussion Wednesday night was good and it showed that people are passionate about the issues.

"I hope you relay to your friends, neighbors and fellow residents of what has transpired up here, so they can make a decision. It boils down to a policy issue: do residents want to spend up to $10 million for a borough hall, police station and 311 W. Main St.?" Szekely said. "It's our government, it's our property, these are our buildings." 

Council Vice President Mary Fuller said the important thing is people care about Lansdale and council's decisions.

"I hope you all understand this is an open process. This has been transparent," she said. "There are steps along the way to be involved." 

In the end, before the votes, Council President Matt West told everyone that he believes "in our professions."

"It's proof positive that (Wisler Pearlstine) was in the weeds with these contracts and we thank you," he said. "I have every confidence in the professionals we hire."

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