New City Hall to stay in old site after Megaworld deal failed
The city government now has to go back to its original plan of building the new City Hall in its old site in Plaza Libertad after Megaworld Corporation totally withdrew from the supposed deal for the project.
City Mayor Jerry Treñas said the corporation's withdrawal from its offer to the city government is "not meant to get them very problematic." The first offer was attractive and "we have been very transparent about the figure."
Megaworld's Senior Vice President for Operations has informed the chief executive of their withdrawal from their offer to the city. The corporation has increased their selling price for the 4,596 square meters of lot from P3,000 to P3,500.
Before, the corporation made an offer of P3,500 for each square of meter of lot in the old airport site as proposed site of the new city hall building, the corporation also made an offer of P2,200 per square meter to the city government.
Treñas said they are now waiting for the latest estimates from the Pacific-Orient Consultants & Management Co. Inc. for the construction of the new city hall building. He hinted they will "do away" with one floor to fit the funding requirement.
In 2006, when the plan to construct was made, the construction cost was only P378,987,675. The city has availed of a P350 million loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines and collected millions of pesos of unpaid taxes from government owned and controlled corporations to fund the construction of an eight-storey new city hall building.
However, in March 2008, estimates on the construction cost of the eight-storey city hall building soared to P463,883,922. The said updated construction cost was also prepared by the Pacific-Orient Consultants & Management Co. Inc. The Pacific Orient through its General Manager Conrado Goco attributed the increase in cost to the increase in the cost of fuel. The increase in fuel prices also triggered the increase in the cost of construction materials like rebars, cement, electrical wires and cables, pipes and fittings and architectural materials.
Treñas said they will continue with the plan to construct the city hall at the more or less 2,000 square meters lot at Plaza Libertad as soon as everything is finalized. The bidding of the project is open to all qualified contractors.
In the March 2008 revised project schedule prepared by Pacific-Orient, the submission of bid is set in the month of October 2008. The signing of contract for the qualified contractor comes on November of the same year. The notice to proceed work is set between the last week of November and first week of December.
Earlier, the International Builders Corporation (IBC) which has been awarded of the contract for bored pile work backed out. They were asking to increase the bored pile works for some P15 million due to increases in the cost of construction materials such as rebars and cement.