LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / May 3, 2000

LAPLACE – The South Louisiana Port Commission’s engineering and construction committee recently reviewed requests for qualifications for three major projects at Globalplex.

Advertisements for RFQs (requests for qualifications) will soon be published for development of the Globalplex master drainage plan, for managing the demolition of the old sugar refinery at the Globalplex site and for architectural services for office and storage facilities for the port office.

In addition, a request for proposal and qualifications will be published to hire a port-wide engineer on a consulting basis. Also, the engineering contract forthe Community Development Block Grant to construct a new access road between the port and Airline Highway was also approved.

St. Charles commissioner Joey Murray urged that the contractors for thedrainage plan and the road construction not interfere with one another but coordinate their efforts.

Executive Director Joe Accardo said he has already met with URS Greiner, the engineer for the CDBG project, to accomplish that very thing. The blockgrant, for $300,000, is to develop plans and construct the new roadway.

Partial funding is being provided through a grant from the U.S. Departmentof Housing and Urban Development.

Completed proposals for the Globalplex master drainage plan will be submitted no later than May 12 at 4 p.m. The proposal packets were madeavailable April 10. The selected firm will be announced at the commission’sJune 16 meeting.

Similarly, the RFQ’s for managing the Godchaux Sugar Refinery demolition will be received by May 8 at 2 p.m. The RFQ’s for architectural services for theport office will be received by May 8 at 4 p.m.Earlier work on demolition was halted in fall 1998 due to environmental concerns when asbestos disposal became an issue, according to Assistant Director Don Hays.

Accardo said the selected firm will be given 60 days to draft the demolition plans. Work is expected to resume this fall.The committee also discussed the water line relocation and tie-in with the parish system with Bruce Carmichael of River Consulting Inc.

What began as a project not to exceed $33,600 in cost will at least exceed $55,000, due to unforeseen problems, including a 60-foot gap between the parish water line and where the port’s water line ended.

A special meeting will likely be held in the days after the May 10 port commission meeting to review all the RFQ’s on all three major projects and further discuss the port’s consulting engineer position.

“We need a consulting engineer looking out for our best interests,” Murray said.

Also in attendance were St. John commissioners E.J. Martin and Bill Hubbardand St. James commissioner Lawrence Jackson.

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