Kel-Tech Construction, Inc. posted the apparent low bid on PS 323/IS 263 in Brooklyn — windows, roofs, exterior masonry, parapets and paved-area concrete work — at $28,600,000 when the New York City School Construction Authority opened 19 bids on May 30, 2024. A year earlier, on April 3, 2024, Kel-Tech bid the same agency's PS 340 fit-out job in Queens and finished dead last out of 12 bidders at $53,259,500 — nearly $22 million above the Navillus Contracting d/b/a Navillus Tile, Inc. low bid of $31,395,000. Neither award has been confirmed.
The Brooklyn job drew the bigger crowd and the tighter race at the top. Adam's European Contracting, Inc. came in second at $28,777,000, just 0.6% above Kel-Tech's low — a gap of $177,000. Roma Scaffolding followed at $28,811,000, and T.A. Ahern Contractors Corp dba Ahern Painting and Venus Group, Inc. rounded out a pack of five bidders within roughly $700,000 of each other. From there the field spread wide: 19 total bidders is an unusually deep pool for SCA exterior work, and the gap between Kel-Tech's low and Neelam Construction Corp.'s high bid of $46,100,000 ran 61.2% — $17.5 million, or 1.61 times the low.
The Queens job tells the opposite story. Navillus's low of $31,395,000 beat Technico Construction Services, Inc's second-place $31,812,000 by just 1.3% — a $417,000 spread, tight at the top just like Brooklyn. But the bottom of that field fell apart: Kel-Tech's $53,259,500 high bid ran 69.6% above Navillus's low, a $21.9 million gap and 1.70 times the low bid — the widest low-to-high spread of any tab on the board this week. A fit-out job — interior condominium build-out across four floors plus a cellar — is a different animal from exterior masonry and roofing, and Kel-Tech's numbers suggest exactly that: a firm that prices exterior envelope work sharply may have far less appetite, or far less certainty, pricing interior floor-by-floor build-out.
Both projects are SCA capital work — PS 323/IS 263 is an envelope overhaul (windows, roofs, masonry, parapets, paving) at an existing Brooklyn school, while PS 340 is new-building interior fit-out in Queens, floors one through four plus a cellar. The tight top-two finishes on both jobs — 0.6% in Brooklyn, 1.3% in Queens — say the SCA's bid documents are giving contractors a scope they can price consistently; what varies is which contractors show up ready to compete on which kind of work.
**What to do next:** If you're chasing SCA envelope work, Kel-Tech's Brooklyn number is the one to beat; if you're chasing interior fit-out, their Queens bid is a reminder to check which SCA contract type you're actually pricing against a given competitor's strength. Watch the SCA's bid results page for confirmation on both 24-22168D and 24-026307, and if your firm bids across both scope types, this pair is worth keeping in your own cross-reference file.