The bids are in on a nine-figure structural repair package from MTA Construction & Development. Eleven contractors bid contract C42010 on July 16, and Navillus Contracting Inc. is the apparent low at $98,640,000 evaluated — the deciding number on a job that repairs the bases of the steel columns holding up three elevated subway lines in Brooklyn and Queens: the New Lots Avenue Line, the Liberty Avenue Line and the Rockaway Boulevard Line.

The top of the tab is a photo finish. J-Track LLC came in at $98,669,000 — so close to Navillus that two estimating rooms essentially read the same job the same way, on work the agency advertised in an over-$100 million range. Both low numbers slid in under that line. Then the field spreads out: Technico Construction Services at $115,095,080, Perfetto Contracting at $118,161,000, Judlau Contracting at $123,861,280, the El Sol Contracting/ES II Enterprises joint venture at $127,221,000, Paul J. Scariano at $131,744,000, Tully Construction at $135,969,945, Forte Construction at $137,855,000, Gramercy Group at $143,718,000, and J D'Annunzio & Sons at $210,107,000 — more than double the low. Eleven bidders on heavy structural work at this size is a real crowd.

This is an A+B contract — bidders priced the work and the schedule together, and low is decided on the combined math. Navillus's $98,640,000 evaluated number breaks down to $88,140,000 in price before the schedule value is added. The work itself, per the MTA's solicitation notice, is street-level surgery repeated column after column: barrier off the base, chip out the old protection concrete, cut the sidewalk or roadway and excavate down to the baseplate, repair the steel to approved shop drawings, pour back the protection concrete and restore the street behind the crew. The contract term is 1,087 days — about three years. The job is 100 percent MTA funded, with goals of 15 percent MBE, 15 percent WBE and 6 percent SDVOB participation.

Those columns are holding up somebody's ride. The New Lots Avenue Line is the 3 train's elevated run through Brownsville and East New York — Sutter Avenue-Rutland Road, Saratoga Avenue, Rockaway Avenue, Junius Street, Pennsylvania Avenue and Van Siclen Avenue, out to the New Lots Avenue terminal. The Liberty Avenue Line carries the A through Ozone Park — 80th Street, 88th Street and Rockaway Boulevard, then the branch through 104th and 111th streets to the Ozone Park-Lefferts Boulevard terminal. And the Rockaway Boulevard Line takes the A south from Rockaway Boulevard past Howard Beach-JFK and Broad Channel to Hammels Wye on the peninsula, where service splits for Far Rockaway and Rockaway Park. For the blocks underneath, the el is the commute — and this work happens on their sidewalks, one barricaded column base at a time.

The usual caveat carries extra weight on an A+B tab: apparent low is not an award. The bids are under review, and the agency still has to confirm the combined price-and-schedule math and the responsiveness of the low bid before anything is signed. With the second number sitting this close, expect that review to be a careful one.

If the number holds, Navillus picks up roughly three years of column-by-column structural work spread across two boroughs — the kind of steady, repetitive scope that keeps steel, concrete and sitework crews booked. The award, when it lands, will be tracked on the board record for this job.