MTA Construction & Development opened four bids on Sept. 3 for Contract MP-9X/CB-9X, gantry replacement at the Marine Parkway Bridge and the Cross Bay Bridge, the two MTA Bridges and Tunnels crossings that carry drivers onto the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. H & L Contracting LLC came in low on the evaluated number at $9,070,000, which is $979,066 under Navillus Contracting Inc. The bids are under review, and an apparent low is not an award. The listing is on our board as RFI-001891.

MTA C&D let this one A+B: the A number is the gross-sum price, the B number puts a dollar value on the milestone durations the bidder commits to, and the lowest A-plus-B total wins the evaluation. The contract price is the A number. H & L's $9,070,000 breaks down to a $5,566,134 price and a $3,503,866 B value.

The full field, evaluated total first and price in parentheses: H & L Contracting LLC, $9,070,000 ($5,566,134); Navillus Contracting Inc, $10,049,066 ($7,347,000); Externetworks Inc, $10,393,943 ($7,643,769); J M & A Construction Corp, $16,538,502.40 ($13,331,302.40).

On the evaluated totals, low beat second by 10.79% and the field ran 82.34% from low to high, with a median of $10,221,504.50. On price alone the gap widens to $1,780,866, or 31.99%, and the spread to 139.51%. Price is what carried H & L. Its B value was the highest in the room, and Navillus posted the lowest at $2,702,066, but no schedule could close a $1.78 million price gap. The agency's contract-documents holders list, dated July 20, showed 13 firms holding documents and an Aug. 27 opening. The bids came in a week later, and four of those firms turned into bidders.

The MTA's capital project record calls this job Sign Gantry Upgrades at the Marine Parkway Bridge and Cross Bay Bridge, a 2025-2029 capital program project that upgrades or replaces the sign gantries over the roadway to improve safety and reliability for motorists, delivered design-bid-build under A+B. The bridges are two different animals. The Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge opened in 1937, and when it was built its vertical lift span was the longest in the world. It ties Flatbush Avenue and the Shore Parkway side of Brooklyn to the Rockaways, and B&T says its traffic runs about 50% heavier in summer beach season. The Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge is a high-level fixed span finished in 1970, about four miles east, and it carries Cross Bay Boulevard through Broad Channel to the peninsula.

Why this matters. This is the second B&T bid on these two bridges in a month. On Aug. 12, C&D opened AW-9Y, Security Upgrades at the Cross Bay Bridge and the Marine Parkway Bridge, where TDP Associates Inc was low on three bids at an evaluated $18,521,000. The MTA's 2025-2029 capital records line up more work on the same two crossings: miscellaneous structural rehabilitation of the Cross Bay Bridge ($39.99 million allocated), the same for Marine Parkway ($18.65 million), a motor control center replacement at Marine Parkway ($16.72 million) and painting programs at both. A steel, electrical or signage shop that gets onto one Rockaway bridge job now will see these two bridges again.

What to do next. Sign-structure fabricators, steel erectors, foundation and electrical subs and traffic-protection crews should price their scopes to H & L Contracting, and should work from the $5.57 million price, not the $9.07 million evaluated total. Watch C&D's awards page for the award. If you missed this one, the structural rehab and motor-control projects on the capital list are the next Rockaway bridge work, so get onto B&T's holders lists as each one advertises.