Goodbye, low bid! TCHC moves to new procurement process for architectural services
TORONTO – Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) has moved to a quality-based selection process for the public procurement of architectural and engineering consulting services as a means to seek out the most innovative and creative solutions for a wide variety of projects for its fully funded capital renewal plan. The capital renewal plan is valued at $1.5B over the next five years and includes everything from building common interior renovations to full-scale building exterior retrofits for townhouses, low and high-rise buildings.
The new procurement methodology will seek out architectural firms with whom TCHC can work in a collaborative manner to preserve and renew existing buildings, elevating the quality of future design services. Through this search, TCHC hopes to identify and partner with architectural contractors to greatly enhance the comfort and quality of tenant lives.
Quality-based selection is a system designed to achieve an objective comparison between bidders during the vendor selection process, using value-based criteria that may include such factors as:
- the architect’s history and capability to perform required services;
- related experience such as past performance on similar types of projects;
- familiarity with local geography and facilities;
- experience and skills in project management; and
- design approach/methodology.
TCHC has moved to a quality-based selection process because investing in high quality design and contract administration services at the onset of a project yields exponential savings during the later phases of construction and leads to improved housing for our tenants.
Interested vendors can refer to TCHC’s website at www.torontohousing.ca/vendors for more information.
Quotes
"Moving forward, we will be using QBS as the standard, allowing TCHC to select vendors based on merit and ability through a strict set of value-based criteria. Quality-based selection will help improve and streamline our procurement process in the pursuit of our mission, to give our tenants safe and comfortable homes for decades to come."
– Albert Koke, Senior Director, Finance, Strategic Procurement, Toronto Community Housing
About Toronto Community Housing
Toronto Community Housing (www.torontohousing.ca) is Canada's largest social housing provider. We provide homes for nearly 60,000 low- and moderate-income households in neighbourhoods across the city.
Media contact:
TCHC Media Line: media@torontohousing.ca | 416-737-1352
