Renovations said unlikely to disrupt club operations

FILE PHOTO
The Ocean Pines Country Club.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(March 21, 2019) Communication issues hampered the process early on, but Ocean Pines Board members on March 9 said they were confident beach club renovations are now moving forward.

The directors voted 5-0 to award a $162,354.50 contract and a 5 percent contingency to East Coast Construction for certain renovations and repairs. Two directors, Ted Moroney and Esther Diller, were not present during the vote.

Director Frank Daly said renovations would include replacing leaking windows, modifying the existing beachfront roof to improve views, and reconfiguring the downstairs bar to serve customers more efficiently.

Daly said the contract addressed deferred maintenance and layout issues that adversely affect the facility.

“These improvements will address leakage, security and customer service issues, and add to the function and appeal of the most valuable asset in the Ocean Pines inventory,” he said.

Daly said plans for the renovation date back to an August board orientation meeting, but information delivered to the board at the time never made its way to the public works department. The department drafted the request for proposals.

“They wrote an RFP based on replacing the windows and replacing the shutters … but the work of expanding the bar and the work that that would entail on the envelope of the building was never communicated,” he said.

He said bid requests went out, but the document initially lacked detail and “was not well written.”

Of the four bids received, Daly said only one, by East Coast Construction, complied with all of the listed requirements. Even so, he said the bid still lacked some requirements of the Matt Ortt Companies, the beach club’s operator.

Having public works do some of the renovations and East Coast Construction cover the larger tasks, such as overhauling the roof, was discussed but found not to be ideal.

“You’d have two construction crews doing the same thing at the same time in the same place,” Daly said. “That didn’t make sense, so they just added [those items] onto their proposal.”

Further complicating matters, Daly, being careful with his words, said East Coast Construction were not initially told the facility might be open while they were doing the renovations.

“It was not clearly communicated that there may be people walking around the deck on the first floor, while [East Coast Construction] will be working on the second floor,” he said. “We had to go over that whole situation with them, to make sure that things were sequenced [correctly]. We don’t want to drop a window frame on one of our loyal patrons.”

The goal is to have work finished before the season, but if delays do occur, Daly said renovations would be “minimally disruptive” to operations.

“The process went extremely well, once what we wanted was communicated and understood,” Daly said. “Up until then, it was kind of questionable.”