4 contractors submit bids for P455M new city hall
Only four of the 13 interested bidders in the construction of the proposed seven-storey Iloilo City Hall have tendered their bids in last Tuesday’s bidding of the multi-million government infrastructure. The proposed bidding price for construction set at P455 million.
Atty. Edgar Gil, chair of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), said Hilmarcs Construction, FF Cruz Construction, Asset Management and KM Oreta Construction and its partner International Builders Corporation (IBC) joined in the bidding.
KM Oreta Construction and IBC merged and posted one common bid in the project. It was not immediately known whether the suspension imposed by DPWH national office against IBC is already lifted. Hilmarcs is the contractor of the new Iloilo Provincial Capitol building.
Gil explained there were 13 interested bidders in the proposed construction of the new city hall building of which three backed out. Of the 10 remaining construction firms, six did not tender their official bidding documents.
The bidding documents would be opened 10 days after they have official submitted their bids. The bidding was only conducted by the BAC on Jan. 13, said Gil.
The city government came late in the implementation of the project after it met several delays. It took sometime for the city government and Architect Willie Coscolluela.
Coscolluela won in the bid to design the construction of the building for more than P12 million. A resolution was passed by the Sangguniang Panlungsod for Coscolluela to his design to the members of the legislative council. He snubbed the invitation and instead presented his design with Mayor Jerry Treñas and other city officials in a different venue.
It is Coscolluela who cornered the contract for the architectural design and the Pacific-Orient Consultants & Management Co. Inc through its General Manager Conrado Goco prepared the estimates for the proposed city hall building.
In the 2006 estimates, an eight-storey building cost is P378,987,675.In March 2008 estimates for the construction cost of the city hall building only amounted to P463,883,922. Six months later, the estimated construction cost already reached to P465,039,000.
The city government made a loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines for P350 million. Another P100 million loan was added because of the volatile prices in the cost of construction materials.
