Jan. 10–Whoever builds a hotel in San Carlos on city-owned land near Highway 101 may have to pay “prevailing” wages to the project’s construction workers.
That is one of the conditions the city council will be asked to approve Monday when it considers requesting proposals from hotel developers.
According to city staff recommendations, developers should be prepared to design, finance and build one or two hotels with at least 200 rooms on the four-acre site near Industrial Road and East San Carlos Avenue that the council in November agreed to buy for $13.7 million.
The hotels should be nationally branded or at least “not less than 3-star quality” and the developer should expect to “engage neighbors” in the concept and final design, according to the proposed request for proposals.
And when it’s time for construction, prevailing wages should be paid.
Prevailing wages is a government term that describes a set pay rate for public works projects based on a combination of factors such as an area’s existing wages and union pay scale.
Although the project would be private if the city sells its property to the selected developer, City Manager Jeff Maltbie said council members indicated in closed sessions that they want a prevailing wage condition applied.
Last month, a subcommittee of Mayor Mark Olbert and Vice Mayor Ron Collins met with city staff to review the request for proposals and “stressed the importance (of) paying prevailing wage for construction,” according to a staff memo for Monday’s meeting.
“I think it’s important that we use it,” Collins told The Daily News on Thursday. “It does add to the cost of the project, but I believe you get more skilled labor when you use union labor.”
Collins said he had not communicated with any union representatives about the project.
With the economy on the rebound, Collins said he believes a developer could add higher salaries to construction costs and still have the project pencil out financially.
With 200 hotel rooms, the city expects to collect up to $1 million a year in room rate taxes.
Tom Owens, a spokesman for the national Building and Construction Trades Department, said requiring prevailing wages in taxpayer-funded projects ensures that “contractors can’t low-ball anything, they can’t mistreat their workers and they have to pay the wages that are standard in the community.”
Without such a requirement, “unscrupulous” contractors would bring in workers from out of state or illegal immigrants, Owens said.
Prevailing wage rates set in California vary by county and are outlined on the Department of Industrial Relations’ website. The website shows, for example, that a plasterer in San Bernardino County makes $32.65 per hour compared to $34.28 in San Mateo County, an electrician makes $27.68 compared to $30.12 and a roofer makes $30.12 compared to $34.65.
Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger@dailynewsgroup.com; follow her at twitter.com/bonnieeslinger.
