DASNY isn't taking bids on the Lehman College technology job yet. It's taking names. On September 11 the Dormitory Authority posted CUNY Lehman College's Campus Wide Technology Infrastructure Upgrade, Phase 1, in the Bronx as an Expression of Interest. Think of it as a tryout before the bid. Submissions are due October 9 at 2 p.m. DASNY prices the job at $6 million to $7 million. Firms it finds qualified get invited to bid later, and DASNY hasn't posted a bid date. No addenda are posted, so no date has moved.

Here's what gets you on the list. DASNY wants one PDF with ten tabs. The first three are your company profile (with self-performed work and M/WBE or SDVOB certificates), your experience, and three sample schedules. Next come a written safety program and resumes for your project manager, superintendent, project engineer and QC lead. Then you list your likely subs with their M/WBE participation and your current workload. The last three are a three-year EMR letter, a surety letter and the state's CCA-2 vendor responsibility questionnaire.

“On this job, the first deadline isn't the bid. It's the list that decides who gets to bid.”

You need at least five years of experience on comparable work and five similar jobs finished in the last ten years. If your EMR is over 1.00, explain it in writing. The surety letter has to show your single, aggregate and available bonding capacity.

So what are you qualifying for? Mostly low-voltage work, with a live data center in the middle of it. The job replaces the fiber backbone between buildings. New cable runs through the campus's existing underground tunnels and pathways to the main telecom rooms in ten buildings. Each run carries 24-strand OM5 multimode and 12-strand OS2 single-mode fiber. Add up the ten backbone runs on the drawings and you get about 7,755 feet, close to a mile and a half. The drawings also say every length is approximate, so field-verify before you order cable. The drawings show no new duct bank for the fiber.

Carman Hall gets a new, smaller data center, built in four phases while the old room keeps running. It has eight cabinets, a 40 kW UPS, two in-row cooling units and two dry coolers, one of them a standby. On top of that, 18 wall-mounted split AC units go into telecom closets across five buildings. Electrical, fire alarm, sprinkler and general construction work round it out. The Nursing Building and Science Hall are marked not in scope.

Now the part that eats margin. The buildings stay occupied the whole time. Power shutdowns are capped at three hours a day. Anything longer and you supply the temporary power. Shutting off the data center's air conditioning takes 30 days' notice, and temporary cooling has to keep the existing server rooms running 24/7. The mechanical drawings also say demolition and any work that makes dirt or noise happens after hours or on weekends, with the overtime included in the bid price. Let's say a big chunk of your demo and pathway labor lands on nights and weekends. Don't count on a change order for that premium. It goes into your number on bid day, or it comes out of your pocket.

Don't trust these documents too far. DASNY says outright that the posted plans and specs are for reference only and aren't the bid set. Good thing, because the project manual has problems. The whole plumbing division is from a different project, an arts center in Lake Placid. It even cites Lake Placid permits and specs elevator sump pumps. The HVAC division still carries Columbia University's procedures, including a Columbia shutdown form due ten working days ahead. One fireproofing section is an unedited template that still says to insert the manufacturer's name. And Divisions 00 and 01 are listed in the table of contents but aren't in the posted manual. Division 01 is the general requirements, starting with the summary of work.

Then there's what the drawings and specs can't agree on. The electrical drawing gives the new UPS 5 minutes of runtime, while the spec calls for 30. That's six times the runtime, which means more battery and a very different price. The drawings call for OM5 fiber throughout, but the spec's backbone cable is OM4. One sheet promises ten new equipment racks, and the data center sheet shows eight cabinets. The mechanical spec says that when documents disagree, the costlier item goes in the base bid. The cabling spec says to carry the most stringent requirement. When the bid set comes out, check whether DASNY fixed these. If it didn't, price the heavier call and send the RFI.

Specialty subs, read the fine print. The fire alarm has to match the building's existing Cerberus Pyrotronics system, and the spec allows no substitutions. Cat 6A cable is CommScope, General or Siemon, with no other equals accepted. The cabling installer has to be manufacturer-certified and keep an office or technical presence with test equipment within two hours' drive of the job. At least 30% of the craft workers have to be certified installers too. If your shop doesn't hold that certification, you won't be the cabling sub on this job.

Here's where labor and participation stand. A project labor agreement applies, and the low bidder has to sign it to get the contract. The PLA text isn't posted yet. DASNY's anticipated goals are 18% MBE, 12% WBE and 6% SDVOB, plus a 45% minority and women workforce goal. They aren't final. The owner sets the real goals when bid documents go out to the invited firms. Even so, at the low end of the range, 18% is about $1.08 million of MBE work and 12% is about $720,000 of WBE work. That's real money for certified low-voltage, electrical and HVAC shops.

Eight firms have signed DASNY's interested subs and suppliers list so far: AME (BMS Controls), Doon Construction Corporation, GenX Design and Technology, Hilton Consulting Group, L&A Utility Solutions Inc, Optimize Title Agency LLC, PatchAmp, Inc. and Smart Bid Estimators. It's a sign-up sheet, not a count of everyone chasing the job.

What to do this week depends on who you are. Primes, get your surety letter and EMR letter moving now, and pick your five best occupied-campus or data-center jobs from the last ten years. Subs, especially certified M/WBE and SDVOB low-voltage, electrical and mechanical shops, get in front of primes before October 9, because the Expression of Interest asks primes to name their likely subs. Everybody should start an RFI list on the UPS runtime, the fiber grade, the rack count, and the stray plumbing and Columbia specs.

Contract length, liquidated damages, bid security, bonds, insurance, the wage schedule and any pre-bid meeting aren't stated yet. Expect them with the bid set, which goes only to the firms DASNY invites. The job is on the RFP Wire as RFI-002294, DASNY Project No. 375250.

On this job, the first deadline isn't the bid. It's the list that decides who gets to bid.