Thirteen bidders. That is what NYSDOT's contract D265681 drew on March 26: concrete pavement preservation on the Nassau Expressway, the Clearview Expressway and Belt Parkway ramps in Queens. The job was advertised for the March 12 letting and opened two weeks later. Bove Industries Inc. came in low at $14,250,000.00. Oliveira Contracting Inc. was second at $15,406,398.97, $1,156,398.97 back, an 8.12% gap.

Behind them: Tully Construction Company Inc. $17,026,156.76; H & L Contracting LLC $17,583,000.00; Westmoreland Construction Inc. $18,695,309.45; Defoe Corporation $19,893,408.70; ES II Enterprises LLC d/b/a El Sol Enterprises $20,760,000.00; Constar Inc. $22,029,685.30; Perfetto Contracting Company Inc. $22,197,326.00; JRCRUZ Corp. $22,365,155.80; John Civetta & Sons Inc. $22,590,500.00; Gateway Demo/Civil Corp. $22,649,661.00; and Restani Construction Corp. high at $26,314,989.34. Low to high the spread is 84.67%, and the median bid is $20,760,000.00.

NYSDOT does not print an engineer's estimate with its letting results. The public yardstick is the state's Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), which carries a construction line for each project. For PIN XM2546, the STIP carries $17.38 million for construction and $2.66 million for inspection. Bove's low is $3,130,000 under the construction line, 18.01%. Three bids came in under it: Bove, Oliveira and Tully. H&L missed it by $203,000. The other nine were over.

The STIP describes the work as repairing and rehabilitating concrete pavement segments along the Nassau Expressway, the Clearview Expressway and Belt Parkway ramps that show distress from wear, age and climate, to extend pavement life. The governor's October list of 2026 paving projects includes $8.1 million and $7.1 million lines to rehabilitate the eastbound and westbound Nassau Expressway (NY-878) between 150th Street and Farmers Boulevard, plus smaller Clearview and Belt Parkway ramp lines in Queens. Those are the corridors this contract names.

The job is federal aid in Region 11, with a deposit of 5% of bid and a DBE goal of 0%. The proposal sets completion for Oct. 27, 2028. Our board carries it as RFI-002575.

Why this matters. An 84% spread among thirteen bids tells you the field read the job very differently. The bottom three agreed it could be done for about $14 million to $17 million, and most of the rest priced it more than $5 million higher. For firms in the top half, the itemized tabulation is a free lesson in where they lost it, whether that was slab replacement, joint work or traffic control.

What to do next. Apparent low is not an award. Concrete suppliers, sawcutting and dowel-bar subs, joint-sealing crews and traffic-control firms should be pricing to Bove. Firms that bid and lost should pull the itemized tabulation from NYSDOT's bid-tabulations page and compare line by line before the next Region 11 concrete letting.