The BC Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) wants to find a new warehouse site by mid-April so it can get cabinet approval for a business plan this summer and move by September 2019.
LDB and PartnershipsBC, the government’s private-public partnership middleman, published three requests for proposals on February 25, seeking a land adviser to help find a new location somewhere in the Lower Mainland, a quantity surveyor and facility consultant.
“The proposed LDB Distribution Centre Project will provide a new warehouse and distribution centre with upgraded warehouse systems to increase operational efficiency, improve wholesale customer satisfaction and decrease operating costs,” said the tendering documents. “It is expected that the business plan will also finalize the service delivery model and select the optimal procurement method for the service delivery.”
The document said the existing warehouse on East Broadway near Rupert in East Vancouver is “in a high traffic commercial area bordered by residential neighbourhoods, making it a very poor location to operate a high volume distribution warehouse.”
The land was sold in August 2014 for $37 million to a consortium of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh first nations and the Aquilini Investment Group.
The government originally agreed to lease the property back until moving the LDB headquarters in 2017. Subject to a cabinet-approved business plan, LDB would stay in East Vancouver until September 2019.
LDB wants to submit that business plan to cabinet by June or July and begin tendering for the project in August. The proponent could be selected by April 2017 – the month before the scheduled May 2017 provincial election.
“At this time, the future site size has not been determined as the business plan analysis will determine the optimum size and configuration of the new building,” the documents said. “It is anticipated that a number of sites will be examined with the project team and once identified, it will be important to secure the site with an appropriate option. Outright purchase may be possible but the business plan will have to be approved by government before the land transaction can be completed.”
The land advisory consultant is the key first hire that the government wants in place by March 11. “Due to the critical path nature of the work, the evaluation will proceed as expeditiously as possible.”
The quantity surveyor, to be hired for early April, would formulate capital cost estimates and hard facility operating costs for the new distribution centre’s lifecycle, within plus or minus 10%.
The facility consultant would begin work in late March and collaborate with Sedlak Management Consultants, the LDB’s October 2013-contracted, Ohio-based warehouse and supply chain consultant.
In 2012, the BC Liberal government cancelled the privatization of LDB warehousing and distribution after Business in Vancouver reported on leaked documents that showed the leading bidder, Ohio-based Exel Logistics, sought to use its BC Liberal-connected lobbyists to influence the writing of tendering documents. The government admitted that it did not have a business plan to justify the logistics privatization.
@bobmackin
