The City Council unanimously approved the award on Tuesday for a construction contract to Triangle DeCon Services, Inc. City staff also requested an additional budget of $148,000 for project contingencies.
Following the council 's selection of a site for an emergency operations center at its Feb. 10 meeting, City Engineer Tom Perez said Triangle DeCon Services, Inc. was willing to hold to the bid price submitted in October.
Advertisement The city received six bids for the project, with the next lowest bid coming in at $1.27 million from SFS Constructors & Builders, Inc. (Laguna Construction & Builder).
Work for the project will include relocation of the city's emergency operations center from a break room at City Hall to the Community and Recreation Center at 30516 South Coast Hwy., as well as the installation of an emergency generator.
City staff also requested an appropriation of $739,000 from the wildfire mitigation and fire safety fund to meet the budget for the project, leaving approximately $1.6 million in that fund.
The remaining funding includes $248,000 from the capital improvement project fund and $150, 000 in the fire department office and equipment account.
Construction could begin in one to two months, with a three-month timeline to complete the project, Perez told the council on Tuesday. A staff report noted the project could begin in April and be finished by July.
"We need to have a reliable, fully-equipped, properly-sized emergency operations center, and one in a seismically-sound building," resident Matt Lawson, a former chair of the city 's emergency and disaster preparedness committee, said before the vote. "... We've got to have this thing. We've been asking for it for years. This has been something that was promised to the committee, was promised to the fire department three years ago. ...
"There's really no reason we should not have it, given our long history of fires, floods and every other kind of natural and man- made disaster to which we are highly vulnerable. Let 's get this done. Please get this done in the next 90 days."
Laguna Beach purchased the property, formerly the St. Catherine of Siena Parish School, from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange for $23 million in late 2022. The site included four buildings totaling 39,500 square feet of indoor space on the campus in South Laguna.
Since the city acquired the property, it has become, in part, home to the city's fire administration, while also providing a variety of community uses that include drop-in basketball, pickleball and volleyball in the gym, and outdoor skate ramps.
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