MTA Construction & Development is taking bids September 17 on Contract E31634, Fan Plant Component Repairs — the electrical and communications guts of 33 fan plant locations across seven subway lines. Read the agency's own paperwork in order, though, and the job has been advertised at two very different sizes.
The solicitation notice MTA issued June 5 puts the estimated range at $5 million to $10 million and set bid opening for July 8. The plan-holder list the Materiel Division printed August 21 shows an open date of September 1. The current-opportunities page on mta.info today lists the same contract at $100 million-plus, closing September 17, with six addenda issued.
“Two agency records, two estimate ranges, ten times apart. Both of them are the MTA's own numbers.”
Every one of those figures came from the MTA. The paper is not calling any of them wrong. What it will say is that the advertised range moved by roughly a factor of ten and the closing date moved twice — ten weeks in total from the original July 8 — and the six addenda that would explain any of it are not public. They go out only to firms that have ordered the documents.
For a contractor deciding whether to chase this, the practical read is simple: price and plan against the agency's current advertisement. That is $100 million-plus and September 17. The June notice is the superseded document.
The work itself is described in four parts. Decommission, remove and dispose of the existing Motorized Control Cabinets with their wiring, cabling and conduit, then install, test and commission new MCCs and Supervisory Control Cabinets. Install, test and commission new data cabinets, Field Distribution Panels, Alternative Field Distribution Panels and network switches. Run new fiber optic cabling between the SCCs, the new telecom equipment and the communication rooms. And perform asbestos surveys and abate the asbestos-containing material found — both what the contractor's own surveys turn up and what MTA's existing surveys already identified.
That fourth item is where a job like this gets priced or lost. The contractor carries the survey obligation and the abatement of whatever the survey finds, at 33 separate below-grade locations, with prior MTA survey findings folded in.
Contract term is 1,947 days — a little over five years. Funding is 100 percent MTA, so no federal aid conditions. Goals are 15 percent MBE, 15 percent WBE and 6 percent SDVOB. The notice states plainly that this is an A+B bidding contract, meaning time is priced alongside dollars, but the per-day evaluation rate lives in the Information for Bidders and is not published.
There is one clause worth reading twice if you are an MBE or WBE shop. The notice carries the MTA's Enhanced Utilization Credit Initiative, run with Empire State Development, which allows an additional 50 percent credit toward utilization of EUCI-eligible firms on this contract. In plain terms, a certified firm on the EUCI list counts for one and a half times its dollars against a prime's 15-and-15 goals here. That changes who a prime wants on the team, and it is the kind of thing that gets buried in Article 18.17 of the General Provisions where nobody reads it.
Twenty-seven firms hold the documents as of August 21 — 18 from the city and Long Island, four from Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley, five from New Jersey. The mix is heavy on electrical contractors and engineering and program-management consultancies, which fits a contract that is mostly cabinets, panels, switches and fiber with an abatement tail.
If you are not already on that list, understand what stands between you and a bid. The notice spells out the sequence: register in SAM, the federal vendor database, before requesting documents — a DUNS number is required. Then get an MTA Bidder/Supplier number through the MTA vendor portal, because the agency states it cannot process a document request without one. Only then does the Document Order Form get you the plans and specs. That is weeks of paperwork, not an afternoon, and it is the reason the holder list on this job is all firms already in the system.
The pre-bid conference was June 17 and the two site tours were June 23 and 24 — Lafayette-Pearl Street Substation and Fan Plant 7210, then Communication Room MR-410 at Canal Street Station. All three are long gone. On a 33-location fan plant job, walking none of it is a real handicap.
What to do next: if you want this one, the realistic move is to get in front of one of the 27 firms already holding documents rather than chase the prime slot from a standing start. If you are an EUCI-eligible MBE or WBE, that credit is your pitch, and it is worth making it before September 17. And if you are pricing anything against the June notice, stop — go to the current-opportunities page and work from the number the MTA is advertising today.