OCTOBER 1, 2017

– Bill Schulz, Beach Cabana Liaison

 

The BRRA Board is looking into the cost of refurbishing the Cabana. 

Background

The Cabana was built in 2004 by Centex and was turned over to the BRRA in 2010. The original construction was not of Marine grade materials and therefore not suitable for beach front construction.  

The siding of the Cabana is constructed with Miratec and over time absorbs moisture: the trim boards are pine and all the hardware was regular steel and not stainless. We have been observing continued deterioration of the Cabana in the form of swollen boards, rusty nails protruding through the siding, rusted door hinges and other items you would expect from non-marine construction.

The pilings and the frame of the Cabana are mostly in good shape and the plan is to reuse as much of that construction material as we can. In 2011 the Cabana was inspected by an engineer who concluded that the pilings and floor joists were sound. Since then we have noticed some warping and water damage to a few of the floor joists. We are also seeing an increase in maintenance costs on the Cabana as a result of the deterioration. We currently spend in excess of $40,000 per year on maintenance.

The Plan

The plan is to request bids from qualified design/build contractors who have beach commercial experience. We have interviewed 3 contractors so far and have asked them to provide 2 bids:

1) Replace the existing siding, bathrooms, roof, trim and decking with marine grade materials and hardware per the existing layout. Repair any damaged floor joists and internal structure as required. This option may require us to bring critical items up to code that have changed since 2004. Therefore, this option may not be as simple and cost-effective as it first appears.

2) Create a new design for the Cabana that will more efficiently use the space we have. We are interested in seeing what designs the contractors come up with that may be worth pursuing.

Each contractor has been told that the Cabana pilings, the elevator, the walkway to the beach and the potential new handicap ramp to the beach are off limits to change. Permitting for moving or installing new pilings towards the beach is very difficult to get approved.

The reason for the two bids is so we can compare the cost of a like-for-like replacement with that of a new design. Each bid requires the use of marine grade materials. 

We anticipate the cost of either option to require voting from the BRRA residents. 

The Schedule

We hope to complete the bidding process by the end of October and have a proposal(s) to share with community. We are targeting to complete community review and voting by the end of January. Construction would begin in the fall of 2018 to be finished in the winter of 2019. The Cabana will be shut down for most of the that time period and we will ask the contractor to be as efficient as possible to minimize the outage. 

We will continue to give updates to the community at our board meetings through the website.

Please direct any questions you have regarding this project to your voting delegate or the BRRA Board email.