Seven companies vying to build the new visitors centre at Echo Point have all been rejected because their quotes are too expensive.
And the Katoomba Chamber of Commerce is urging council to embrace the result as a golden opportunity to rethink the project.
Council put the multi-million dollar project out to tender earlier this year and received bids from seven companies by the April closing date. But all of them were more than 30 per cent over the budget.
Council has received a Stronger Regions Grant of nearly $3 million for the upgrade of stage one of the new centre. There is also other operational and matched funding as part of the Scenic Southern Escarpment grant.
Despite this, no tender came close to meeting the contract price.
To honour the grant, council has to find a way to resolve the discrepancy between the tender prices and the project’s budget.
A report on the project, to be submitted to next week’s council meeting, has concluded there is no point in reopening the tender.
While council can cancel or postpone the project, the report instead recommended delegating the general manager to liaise with any interested party to get construction costs to with +/- 10 per cent of the budget.
Council has taken this path before, with the tender for construction of The Hub in Springwood, the Hat Hill Road subdivision in Blackheath and the Reids Plateau walking track upgrade in Katoomba.
But the Katoomba chamber thinks there should be a rethink of the whole project.
It has questioned the need for a new centre at Echo Point where one already exists and when they feel there is an urgent need for an information centre near the railway station.
Chamber president, Mark Jarvis, said perhaps council would reconsider the project in light of the expensive tenders.
“This is a perfect opportunity to revisit what the chamber believes, that the information centre should be at the top end of town,” he said.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity not to be missed this time.”
The recent closure of the Trolley bus shopfront right at the station, and the earlier closure of the Summit Gear shop nearby, meant there was space available right now, he said.
“They are both quite wide frontages and one is opposite the pedestrian crossing.”
Mr Jarvis said he believed there would be a large number of locals happy to volunteer in an information centre near the station.
“If council said maybe this is a better suggestion in the long run, certainly the volunteers would come to the fore and help in its running.”