By Kevin Martel

City confirms one bidder pulled out of stadium project

May 30, 2014 | 7:28 AM

There have been rumblings over the last few months that one of the three bidders to design and build Regina’s new stadium had pulled out and now the city is confirming that is true.

Deputy City Manager and COO Brent Sjoberg explained that the Clark-Turner team had dropped out earlier in the bidding process, leaving just Bouygues Construction Graham Community Partners and the company that eventually won the bid, PCL Construction.

Sjoberg said Clark-Turner is already involved in other high profile projects, including the new stadium in Minneapolis. However, he couldn’t say for sure why the company decided to call it quits on the $278 million new home of Saskatchewan Roughriders.

When asked if the project’s criteria were perhaps too restrictive, Sjoberg did admit they wanted the best facility possible and stuck to that.

“I think we set a high bar. I wouldn’t apologize for that. We were looking to get a lot of facility for the budget that we had. The great thing is that we were able to achieve that,” Sjoberg said.

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Although there had been rumours circulating about one bidder dropping out, that information was kept quiet by the city during the procurement process and only made available when the contract was finalized; something that’s just standard procedure according to Sjoberg.

“Keeping some information to ourselves ensures the bidders aren’t aware of some information along the way as well, so it puts us in a good position to be able to negotiate.”

He pointed out that even though Clark-Turner decided to leave the project, the two bidders that were left still engaged in a competitive process which ensured the public still got the best bang for their buck.

“The only scenario that would have impacted competitiveness would be having one bidder,” he explained. “[The bidders] weren’t in it just to phone it in. We feel pretty comfortable the city is getting the best value as a result of that competitive dynamic.”

 Excavation work will start at the stadium site in June, with cranes in place by August.

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