Bids opened August 19 on a new transitional residence at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center's South Campus in Queens, and Max Builders, Inc. came out apparent low among ten bidders at $7,260,400 — comfortably inside the state Office of General Services' own $7 million to $8 million estimate for the construction trade. Second place sat 5.8 percent back at $7,680,000; the high bid ran more than double the low, at $17,310,400.
Getting to bid day took three tries. The job was originally set to close June 17, then addenda pushed it to July 15, then July 29, before it finally closed August 19 — a two-month slide, and not just paperwork. Along the way, the specs actually changed: one addendum swapped in wood windows and revised the aluminum storefront and glazing package and dropped a plastic-fence spec for composite wood fencing; a later addendum revised the steel doors and frames, the wall-and-door protection, and the earthwork; the final addendum, issued two weeks before bids closed, revised the medium-voltage cable spec. A contractor pricing this job in June would have priced a different building than the one that actually bid in August.
Max Builders' contract covers only the general construction trade — this is one of four parallel prime contracts on the same building, with OGS separately estimating $2 million to $3 million for HVAC, $1 million to $2 million for plumbing, and $2 million to $3 million for electrical. Whoever wins those three companion contracts will be sharing the same active site as Max Builders' crews for the roughly 26 months OGS has set for substantial completion.
That site is occupied, which is the real complication here. Creedmoor's South Campus keeps running while this gets built: pre-bid site visitors needed photo ID and were subject to vehicle search, and one addendum requires the electrical contractor to run temporary power — two 125kW diesel generators — to two adjacent occupied buildings during construction, because the new building's work can't be allowed to interrupt power to people already living on campus.
The building itself is a new transitional residence — a group-home-style facility meant to move psychiatric patients from institutional care into a more independent, supervised setting before they leave the campus system entirely. No unit count or square footage survives in the documents this paper could read, so neither number appears here; what's certain is the trade split, the timeline, and the fact that the state is building this alongside three occupied residential buildings rather than on cleared ground.
The standard caveat applies: an apparent low bid is not an award. OGS reviews every bid for responsiveness and every bidder's qualifications before signing anything.