Bloomington OKs $770K contract with Compass for buildout of Trades District parking garage for ESnet
Due to get started in the third week of September is the construction work to build out 4,059 square feet of office space for Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) on the ground floor of the Trades District parking garage.
The space fronts on Rogers Street south of 10th Street.
Winning the bid for the work, which was based on an RFP (request for proposals) issued by Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC), was Compass Commercial Construction Group, out of Indianapolis.
The RDC approved the agreement with Compass at its regular meeting earlier this week, on Monday.
Compass is partnering with DELV Design for the design work, which is supposed to get started as soon as the week beginning July 8, based on the timeline included in the response from Compass.
According to materials in the RDC’s meeting information packet, the design is supposed to include 8-12 closed offices, surge seating for 12 guests, a 2–4 person conference room, a larger meeting space for up to 20 people, soft seating, large whiteboards, and screens.
The space calls for non-gendered bathrooms, a kitchen with bar seating, security cameras, moveable whiteboards, ample outlets, wireless network access, and electronic access. The style is supposed to be modern with wood features and sound baffling elements.
It was the proposed completion date by the end of the year that was the deciding factor, putting Compass ahead of the other two firms that bid on the project. That’s according to John Fernandez, who is vice president of The Mill, the non-profit that was tapped a year and a half ago by the RDC to promote development of the Trades District.
Fernandez said one of the firms proposed a completion date in January and the other in May.
City attorney Larry Allen, who provides legal support for Bloomington’s RDC, described the tenant as “eager” to get into the space.
The lease that will allow ESnet to occupy the space was approved by the RDC in May.
The lease includes a $55 per-square-foot improvement allowance, which translates into a total of $223,245. The initial term of the lease is five years, and includes three possible five-year renewals.
There’s also additional money that the RDC has committed to spending on improvements to the space—$550,000 more, which would have to be reimbursed to the RDC by ESnet. That reimbursement would come through additional rent to be paid on top of the base rent.
The base rent for the first year is $19 per square foot. The annual increase is set for 2.5 percent.
The not-to-exceed amount of the work by Compass is $770,000. At Monday’s meeting, that number was scrutinized by RDC member John West, who wanted to know where the amount was specified in documents that had been provided to the RDC.
The answer from Allen was that a page from the proposal by Compass with the $770,000 figure had been inadvertently omitted from the meeting information packet. And the dollar amount should have been included in the contract, Allen said.
Deborah Myerson, who was chairing the meeting after Deb Hutton’s recent resignation from the RDC, paused the vote on the Compass agreement until the missing page could be tracked down and provided to the RDC. The RDC circled back to the Compass agreement, after handling some other business.
ESnet describes itself as providing high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities, and other research institutions, to make it possible for them to collaborate on scientific challenges like climate science among others.
The actual tenant for the lease of the Trades District garage space is the regents of the University of California. That’s because the steward of ESnet is Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley—it’s funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
