News

By Brian Biggane

After four months of fruitless negotiations, the South Palm Beach Town Council decided at its June meeting not to hire Moonlight Architecture to oversee the design and building of its new Town Hall and has moved on to its second choice, Broward County-based CPZ Architects.

After the decision was made, Town Manager Jamie Titcomb reported CPZ expressed interest in taking over the long-delayed project and contract talks were underway. Titcomb had a proposal in hand by late June and planned to present it to the council at its July meeting.

“The numbers are a bit higher than we had hoped, but it’s a starting point and we’ll go from here,” Titcomb said. South Palm Beach has so far budgeted $4 million for the project.

The council sent out a request for bids in late 2023 and ultimately invited four interested firms to make proposals in February, though by law no monetary terms could be addressed at that time.

Moonlight, which is based in Cincinnati but brought in another firm based in Fort Lauderdale to give its bid a local connection, impressed the council with its extensive background in building with structural insulated panels (SIPs), which the council had previously determined would be used in the construction.

CPZ, which had five representatives at the February meeting, including a manufacturer of SIPs, emerged tied with Moonlight in voting by the council but ultimately Moonlight was selected.

“It was a very hard decision because CPZ is very professional,” Mayor Bonnie Fischer said at the time. “It was very close, but I scored Moonlight higher.”

Moonlight CEO Andy Roehl said at the same meeting that he was “excited to get going,” but Town Attorney Ben Saver, who has been charged with negotiating a contract for the work, has reported back in the ensuing council meetings that talks were hitting one snag after another.

One significant point of contention was the percentage of the total project costs that would go to Moonlight. Saver said his research indicated a typical architect in the construction of a municipal building would receive 7.4%, but Moonlight was demanding 15%.

The council urged Saver to work for a compromise, with Council member Monte Berendes even asking, “Can it be 14-and-a-half?” Saver replied, “You can always ask. (But) I’ve already said that to them several times, and this is still what they’ve come back with.” The town instructed Saver to offer no more than 10%.

There was also confusion over what the town would be getting for its investment. In the Moonlight proposal, the town was left with the impression that Moonlight would have its local representative, Eric Schuermann, on site throughout the construction, meaning the town wouldn’t need to hire an owner’s rep. But Moonlight has not since indicated if he would offer any oversight.

At the council’s May meeting, both Fischer and Council member Elvadianne Culbertson, who was not yet on the council when Moonlight was selected, suggested the town might have to pay more for Moonlight’s expertise.

“We’re working with people who really know what they’re talking about,” Fischer said. “At this stage I would hate to start over again.”

Saver said the main problem he perceived was that Moonlight has previously done little if any work with municipalities and was unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of negotiating in the public sector.

One example: When Saver sent Moonlight a 17-page proposal, the firm responded with one running 51 pages. Moonlight was also slow to respond to Saver’s initiatives, sending him one update two hours before the June council meeting, too late for him to pass on any information.

While moving past Moonlight, the council also instructed Titcomb to investigate whether Schuermann might be brought on as a consultant and/or owner’s rep. Saver thought that was a good idea, but the issue will not be dealt with at the present time.

“Other towns would have engineers on staff and they could review and send comments back,” Saver said. “We don’t have that personnel which is why an owner’s rep makes sense. They could help with construction management and help us where we don’t have the expertise.”

Fischer said she was “very disappointed” that talks with Moonlight had been so fruitless for so long and that starting over would mean “another four, five, six months” just to get the design phase done.

To that, Saver responded, “We don’t want to lose sight of what the end goal is, which is to get a new Town Hall. As long as we can get an end product that we can enjoy, that’s the goal.