Twenty general contractors wanted the roof-leak job at Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem. All-Con Contracting Corp. priced it lowest at $17,238,000 when the NYC School Construction Authority opened bids at 12:13 p.m. on Wednesday, February 4.

The job is solicitation 26-026652 at the Frederick Douglass Academy building, 2581 Seventh Avenue in Central Harlem, which the city lists as building M010. The tab calls it roof leak, exterior masonry and windows work, with path-of-travel accessibility work tied to the roofs. It's on our board as RFI-000812.

The top of the field: All-Con Contracting Corp. at $17,238,000. ZARCO CONTRACTING INC. at $17,877,000. IMPERIUM CONSTRUCTION, INC. at $18,242,000. WHITE ROCK CONSTRUCTION CORP. at $18,250,000. Pro-Metal Construction Inc. at $18,371,000. CARNAK CONSTRUCTION INC. at $18,397,000. The high bid was Whitestone Construction Corp. at $32,237,000. The other 13 ran from $19.2 million to $27.0 million.

All-Con beat Zarco by $639,000, or 3.7%. Six bids landed inside $1.16 million of the low. The median of all 20 was $20,005,205, so the low came in 13.8% under it. The spread from low to high is 87.0%, and most of that is one bid: Whitestone's number was $5.2 million over the 19th. The SCA did not publish an engineer's estimate. Apparent low is not an award.

"Roof leak" is plainer language than the SCA usually uses, and it's the whole story of why these jobs exist. The authority's February 2025 capital plan amendment calls water infiltration "the single greatest cause of accelerated deterioration" of school buildings, and says that when roofs, parapets, windows or masonry rate poor, the other exterior pieces get folded into the same project.

Why this matters. Twenty bidders on a $17 million job is as crowded as SCA work gets. With six firms inside $1.16 million, subs who got numbers to several of them had a real shot at being carried no matter who won.

What to do next. Roofers, masons and window installers: get your number to All-Con Contracting Corp., and keep ZARCO CONTRACTING INC. current until the SCA acts. Watch the tab for 26-026652 for the award flag and the named Wicks subcontractors.

Update, Sept. 28, 2026: The SCA's tab now marks All-Con Contracting Corp. as awarded at $17,238,000, with VARSITY PLUMBING AND HEATING, INC., R.A.M.S. MECHANICAL, INC. and STANCO SYS. ELEC. CONTRACTING INC named as its Wicks subcontractors.