Ottawa’s construction industry is taking aim at a decision by the City of Ottawa to sole- source the design and construction of a newcomer welcome centre.

The Ottawa Construction Association (OCA) and the General Contractors Association of Ottawa (GCAO) say they were only made aware of the city’s decision to sole-source the construction project to a Toronto-based company via an Advanced Contract Award Notice (ACAN) process that closes next week.

The notice indicates that the city intends to award the $15-milion project to Toronto’s BLT Construction Services on the basis of a market assessment that found that no local contractors are capable of designing and supplying a pre-engineered structure on a condensed or 'fast-track' basis.

The notice also allows local companies to demonstrate within a two-week window that they are also capable of building the 30,000-square-foot Sprung structure.

In a letter to Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and city councillors, OCA and GCAO say they are dismayed that city officials, with whom both associations have long-standing relationships, never asked for the local industry’s input into the project.

The letter goes on to say, “In fact, the reaction of many of our members is that it is profoundly insulting to the abilities of the local industry that the city has relied on a consultant's market assessment that concludes that there are no local contractors capable of designing and building the proposed Sprung structure.”

OCA and GCAO have asked the city's Chief Procurement Manager to release its market assessment document immediately in the interests of transparency.

"It's obvious decisions have been made based on a consultant's report that there's no local capacity to do it," said OCA President John DeVries added. "Contrary to that, we quickly gleaned from our membership that we have builders who have built Sprung structures."

Taplen Commercial Construction, for example, has delivered three locally for the Department of National Defence.

Although Taplen President Michael Assal told CBC News that those structures didn’t have quite the same requirements as those the city has requested, the local construction sector has more than enough qualified firms to build the city’s project – including his.

"It's not rocket science," he said. "It just takes some attention to detail."

Meanwhile, OCA and GCAO have criticized the city for allowing a response period of just two weeks to the original ACAN, calling it, “totally inadequate” for bidders to assemble serious proposals.

They add that any qualified local would-be bidders are now unlikely to register their intent to win the work, given the perception that city staff have already declared a winning bidder.

The associations have called for the City of Ottawa to re-launch the procurement process entirely by cancelling the ACAN and putting out a request for proposals to the local construction industry.