King-Victoria Transit Hub

[Viewfromthe42]

The important point is that only unionized carpenters can work on municipal construction projects, so anyone wanting to bid on the Hub would have to be prepared to use unionized carpenters for the whole thing (and I would think that since there's expectation of a significant office/residential portion, that would not be an inconsequential portion of the work). I don't pretend to know whether most/some/any jobs around here are done with or not with unionized carpenters, mind you.

This is not just a reply to #Viewfromthe42 but for ALL who post in this thread, who have rushed to judgement seeing unions as the scourge of the earth related to the Transit Hub.

There is nothing in fact linking all or any of the assumptions stated in this thread about the Transit Hub RFPQ linking it to "union workers required". 

The truth is no one here, including myself, knows why EllisDon was the only team to bid for the RFQ.

Just like The Waterloo Record this forum thread section, for the last two months, has become a union bashing forum based on assumptions that are incorrect and just built on the last incorrect assumption and the next and ....  

Facts please, not fiction or assumptions that there is even the slightest connections to union requirements. Just because the unnamed  president of a large country can do this, does not mean that everyone can invent their own truths and then build on the narrative as true.

I have my own personal views on unions, as I've seen them do great things and horrible things, believing that group action is important but also that it can go too far.

In this case, I don't know well enough if this project is in a weird spot where it is big enough that primarily local bidders won't emerge (unless as a sub-partner), but where those big enough to bid don't know our area's available union options (if the requirement for union labour applies here, as has been unclear).


As I've said before, I theorize (without knowing) that the uncertainty over whether you're bidding on building a public transit facility and can recoup costs by building office/residential space no taller than 12 storeys, or perhaps in the range of 25-30 storeys. If you're going to bother investing time and effort in submitting to the RFQ phase, you have to be able to believe that you can be competitive in the RFP phase. What kind of competitive bid on the public facilities you can create will depend a great deal on what kind of cost-recoup you can get, based on non-public square footage you can sell, which is directly linked to density. If the RFQ had gone out clearly stating 25-30 storeys, then you'd have a great recoup potential and more bidders, all giving you a price based on that level of recoup potential. Currently, as I understand it, it went out under the possibility of fewer than 12 storeys of recoup potential, which would be a much greater risk to small players. Worse, we eliminate competition by having it go out under those auspices, and then even if we now say 25-30 storeys are an option, the bidders would have been planning a public facility that could be recouped with fewer than 12 storeys of saleable assets, meaning a lower overall public value, but the extra storeys wind up going solely to increasing their profit margins. Foolish on the Region's part, if that's what is indeed happening.