Committee delays vote on PUC water enterprise headquarters design contract after BLA flags procurement and scope issues

The Budget and Finance Committee on May 4 continued an ordinance that would approve a design professional services agreement with Mark Cavanero Associates for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s water enterprise city distribution division headquarters design work, citing outstanding procurement and policy questions.

The budget analyst told the committee the contract NTE is $27,800,000 for design services at a site on Maroon Street while reported construction costs could reach approximately $394,000,000. The BLA raised procurement concerns: two rounds of RFPs produced only one responsive bidder, and two proposals were disqualified for errors on cost forms. The analyst said the scale of the NTE compared with contract budgets in other projects was atypical and recommended further review.

The ordinance would also exempt the PUC’s proposed agreement from the city’s prohibition on behest payments to allow social impact partnership program commitments contained in the contract. Public commenter David Pilpel urged in‑house design work and opposed the behest‑payments exemption; supervisors and the BLA said additional justification and procurement detail are needed. Supervisor Peskin and others supported continuing the item to allow PUC to provide more documentation. The committee agreed and continued the matter to the call of the chair.