Senior management staff at Town Hall were before Huntsville Council at its July 24 meeting with an update on the Waterloo Summit Centre for the Environment. Staff told council that they’ll be requesting private sector help to evaluate the best use for the building: an economic evaluator’s expertise will be added to the panel which will consider RFP submissions.
“The senior management team and I certainly agree that this is a very unique RFP,” Huntsville CAO Denise Corry told council. She said before a submission can be evaluated, staff will come up with weighted criteria in order to determine the winning submission. She said because some of those submissions may involve the sale of the building, an offer to lease it and/or an offer to enter into a partnership for the use of the building, developing criteria to weight the submissions has been more difficult.
We really needed to have someone who is an economic appraiser; someone who could actually evaluate the business proposals that would be submitted with these submissions. I certainly will not profess to be a professional in economic development and appraisals and business plans. Even though we have a lot of strength in our economic development officer, he also agreed that that was probably an expertise we needed to get offsite Huntsville CAO Denise Corry
Responding to queries from councillors as well as members of the public, Corry said, “I know it seems like it’s been a lengthy process but it is a very unique RFP that has to be done properly, in our opinion. And we want to be able to bring back something to council that has been fairly and adequately evaluated before we make a recommendation.”
What to do with the Waterloo building has been a point of contention among councillors. You can find related stories below. You can also find the RFP here.
Related stories:
Town expected to issue RFP for Waterloo building by end of week
Accelerate Muskoka says they’re prepared to compete for the Waterloo building
University of Waterloo building proving to be one of this council’s most contentious issues, so far
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