Jackie Ryan
News Staff
The OVA Board of Directors has unanimously agreed to abandon the use of a design-build firm for the Berger renovation and instead hire a project manager to guide a new renovation process. The board said it will first move forward with emergency replacement of the chiller before launching a detailed scope of work and a competitive bid process for upgrading the 60-year-old Berger.
The vote followed a lengthy discussion of two resolutions, including a tabled resolution dubbed Berger 2.5, that would have pared down a tiered $8.2 million proposal from the design build firm ESG, stopping short of adding a vestibule expansion of some 1,000 additional square feet.
Related: Video: 7-21-2026 Board Meeting
OVA President Steve Spanier said after much discussion and many meetings, the board determined ESG was not a fit for Oakmont.
“The first step is to hire a person or a company that will essentially be our advocate through the entire process,” he said. “A company that has done this kind of thing before. A company that has the right expertise, the right experience.”
In response to some residents who called the decision a setback during open forum, directors said it’s not undoing progress that has been made and that much of the detail for a scope of work has been completed.
“We’re not starting from zero,” said Director Terrie Mui. “We want to take the inputs from the community and make sure case-use statements are put in a place where we can come up with multiple designs, not just the one design that ESG provided.” She said the majority of functional elements in the building have already been defined. “We will be fine tuning.”
Spanier said the community will be encouraged to give input on all the process going forward.
In other pending areas of work for the board, Spanier said sufficient progress has been made on the golf course lease, the potential purchase of the OVA office building which is now rented, dealing with the deteriorating cabana at the central pool, and a direction for updating the governing documents. The board, however, is not ready to vote on resolutions regarding those issues and it is anticipated they will be on the August meeting agenda.
The board also approved several new committees and ad hoc committees. These include the Communications Committee, the Oakmont Gardens Committee, the Berger Project Ad Hoc Committee and the Governing Docs Committee.
A town hall on Sonoma County’s possible plans for added county services and expanded facilities at Los Guilicos will be held August 10 at 3 p.m. in the Berger, and also on Zoom.