By Bob Tweedie, Economic Development Director, City of Tavares, Florida.
The City has selected, through a Request for Qualifications procurement process as required by Florida Statute, Haskell Corporation for the design/build project to reconstruct the Tavares Seaplane Base and Marina facilities destroyed by Hurricane Irma. We have issued a contract and Notice to Proceed on the design, due diligence, permitting phase on August 1, 2018. Under the terms if that contract Haskell has 240 days to complete this phase of the project. Upon completion of this phase of the project, by the end of March 2019, Haskell will have secured all necessary permitting on behalf of the City and provide detailed construction plans, construction cost, and construction schedule. Upon acceptance and approval by the City’s Insurance Carrier, which is funding 98% of the cost of the project (including design), the construction phase contract will be required to be brought to the City Council for approval at a scheduled public City Council meeting and a notice to proceed for construction will be issued upon approval and execution of that construction phase contract with a completion date based upon the construction schedule provided by the contractor and agreed upon by the City. The date of construction commencement and completion will be determined upon completion of design and subsequent contract approval/execution.
Although permanent docks/facilities will not be completed in time for this year’s Sunnyland Annual Antique and Classic Boat Show scheduled for March 22-24, 2019, the City is working with a temporary dock vendor and the Insurance Carrier to provide floating temporary docks for the boat as it did last year. It is anticipated that the floating dock capacity will be larger than last year and the layout will provide for individual boat slip docking as opposed to the linear docking of last year’s show. City staff is coordinating/communicating this effort with Terry Feist and the boat show leadership team and has made a commitment to providing them with the temporary dock layout and boat capacity by the beginning of January. We will continue to update the boat show leadership team with any and all new developments and schedules related to the rebuild of the permanent facilities and the temporary boat show docks.
More encouraging than the earlier report on Woody Boater
Definitely more encouraging and professional. The Haskell Company is a Jacksonville company and Preston Haskell is an acquaintance of mine. The company enjoys a good reputation. I look forward to putting the St. Johns River Cruise boats on the docks.