A downtown redevelopment project could be exempted from a state law requiring qualifications-based selection for design-services contracts.

The Washington City Council, during its meeting Monday, will consider exempting the project involving the former Belk and Hotel Louise buildings from the law. That law (General Statute 143-64.31) requires local governments to use the qualifications-based selection when selecting an architect, engineer, construction manager at risk, surveyor, design-builder or private developer for a public-private development contract. The law does allow a local government to exempt itself from the law, permitting it to choose an architect, engineer, surveyor or alternate construction delivery method by whatever method it chooses. Such an exemption is capped at $50,000, meaning the estimated cost of the contract cannot exceed that amount.

The City Council does not have to approve invoking the exemption clause of the law, but many local governments do so because they consider it a good practice, according to a memorandum from Bobby Roberson, interim city manager, to the mayor and council.

Earlier this year, city staff began preparing contract documents concerning proposed options on the two downtown properties. The city intends to assign those options, after following required procedures, to a to-be-determined third party or third parties for development purposes. The city hired the University of North Carolina’s School of Government to assist it with this process.

The proposed aggregate cost for the options on the two properties is $23,000. The aggregate cost for acquisition of the two properties is $841,000. The city plans to use general-fund money to finance the cost of the options for the two properties.

During a meeting in June, the City Council received information about the project.

“For the last eight to 10 months, under the approval of council and guidance of (City Manager) Brian Alligood, we have been negotiating on behalf of the city option contracts for two key properties here in downtown Washington,” said Jordan Jones, a project manager with the School of Government’s Development Finance Initiative, to the City Council at that meeting. “The goal here is not for the city to acquire the properties but to acquire site control and option contracts so we can assign this purchase contract to a future developer that we will be identifying in our work as we start getting more involved in this process.”

Jones said then that during the next several months the DFI team would be working in downtown Washington to “think through potential uses of these sites.” Jones said that team is aware that the council has expressed an interest in a hotel for downtown Washington.