Request for Proposal Outdoor Education and Recreation Expansion at Kaycliff Center
The Kaycliff Foundation is seeking proposals for improvements to our facility, Kaycliff Center at Boone Lake, located at 212 Spurgeon Gap Road, Gray TN 37615.
Below is a list of the improvements that we hope to make to our property, along with a link to more specific information for each item:
Various shelters and gazebos around the walking trail
About us
Clifford Sanders was born in rural Oklahoma and moved to Kingsport, TN after graduating Cumberland School of Law. He began his practice in the 1930s before the United States entered World War II.
Shortly after our country entered the war, Cliff joined the United States Navy and served as a naval aviator in the Pacific Theater. Near the end of the war, Cliff met Kathleen Currant of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Kathleen, who went by Kay, was serving as a Pan-Am stewardess at the time. They courted quickly, married, and moved back to Kingsport after the end of the war.
Cliff returned to practicing law, and Kay worked as his legal secretary throughout his career as an attorney, and after he was appointed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals in the 1970s. They loved calling East Tennessee their home, but by the 1950s, the Sanders began a series of worldwide adventures and safaris that spanned five decades and all seven continents.
After every trip, the Sanders brought back anthropological artifacts, hunting trophies, photographs, and stories of their adventures. By the mid-1970s, they had collected thousands of pieces. So they built a new cabin on a lakeside property they had bought right before Boone Dam had been completed.
Over the next several decades through the 80s and 90s, the Sanders collected more. And with every trip, had more stories to tell their friends and family every time they got together at the cabin.
Kay and Cliff decided as they got older, to establish the Kaycliff Foundation as a private operating foundation to hold and maintain their collection and lake property for use and benefit of the public for educational, recreational, and training purposes.
Today, the Sanders’ lake cabin is known as Kaycliff Center at Boone Lake. After the Sanders’ passing, the Foundation renovated Kaycliff Center into a multipurpose facility. In the past, we have rented out for meetings and special events.
As we look to the future, the Kaycliff Foundation is looking to open Kaycliff Center as a public attraction. In addition to housing the Sanders’ massive collection in a museum quality setting, we hope to expand the appeal of our facility by the projects mentioned above.
By completing these improvements:
We hope to offer a short, picturesque walking trail around the edge of Boone Lake that is ideal for all ages in an unincorporated area of the TriCities where outdoor fitness opportunities are more scarce.
We hope to provide educational hubs around our property that reflect Kay and Cliff Sanders’ adventures around the world.
We hope to give local families a unique playground to enjoy.
We hope that the unique character of our property and collection and the spirit of adventure that it reflects is enlivened for thousands of visitors a year.
As part of this procurement process, The Kaycliff Foundation is distributing this request for proposal to general commercial contractors licensed in the State of Tennessee with a monetary limit of $500,000 or more.
The Foundation realizes the amount of excavation involved in this project, and is open to a general contractor subbing out the excavation work. And we prefer that. However, due to our desire to complete this project quickly, we would be open to an excavator completing our walking trail and digging and filling concrete pads prior to a general contractor’s deployment. We will be open to going this route after conferring with general contractors about this project.
In our email to you, we summarized the timeline for the bidding process, but here it is again:
RFP published: Monday, December 7th, 2020
Intent to reply deadline: Friday, December 11th, 2020
Non-mandatory, informal site tour: Wednesday, December 16th, 2020 at 11:00 AM
Questions for Kaycliff due: Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020
Answered By: Wednesday, December 30th, 2020
Submission Due: Friday, January 8th, 2021
Invitations to Bid Conference Sent By: Thursday, January 14th, 2021
Selection date: ASAP after all bid conferences
Please follow this link for additional instructions to bidders.
Here is an index of all pages on our website about this RFP.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this request for proposals and all of the materials provided, if you have any questions, please contact us via email at info@kaycliffcenter.com! We look forward to hearing from you.