You can't bid the flood job at the College of Staten Island unless you sign the attendance sheet at a site walk. And you can't get the walk details until you've sent in a form. The City University Construction Fund, which is bidding the job for CUNY, put two walks on the schedule: October 2 and October 9. The request for bid says a bidder who doesn't attend and sign is non-responsive and can't submit. It doesn't say whether one walk covers you.
So here's the order. Fill out Exhibit 1, the two-page responder's information form, and send it to the designated contact on the RFB cover. The fund emails the visit details to the firms that sent it. No time or meeting spot is printed anywhere in the bid documents.
“Low number wins, but only if your references pick up the phone.”
Now, the job. It's the Campus-Wide Flood Mitigation at 2800 Victory Boulevard, project number SI-CUCF-11-26 on the RFB cover and RFI-003025 on our board. It touches five buildings: 1N, 2N, 1P, 2M and 2R. None of them sits in a FEMA flood zone, the RFB says. The design is based on the college's own record of past storms, utility surveys and the city Buildings Department's flood design manual, and the goal is to keep heavy rain out of those buildings.
It's a pile of small trades under one lump sum. Building 1N gets part of its parking lot regraded, its areaway curbs raised, foundation waterproofing and roof work. Building 2M gets a trench drain, a check valve, two flood gates and eight flood pumps in the basement. Building 2R gets four depressed slabs with drains at the courtyard entrances, and its buried courtyard drains get dug up and tested. The schedule of values form in the spec book puts numbers on it: 530 square feet of depressed slab, 815 linear feet of gutter replacement, 20 downspouts, and 2,167 square yards of asphalt at 1N.
Building 1P has the asbestos. The abatement section lists one location and 30 square feet of black waterproofing coating at the base of the facade. That's smaller than a sheet of plywood. But the spec limits hazardous material removal to 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., while the project summary puts typical hours at 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. So you're pricing a night mobilization for a patch.
Here's the thing to settle before you price general conditions. The RFB gives you nine months from notice to proceed. The project summary in the spec book gives you 11 months to substantial completion, plus one more month to physical completion. Two or three extra months of supervision, fence and insurance is real money. The closest thing to a tiebreaker is in the general conditions, which say that when parts of the contract documents conflict, the more onerous provision governs, in the owner's judgment and regardless of cost. The spec also tells bidders to use an attached schedule for bidding. The page after it is the general conditions, and no schedule is there. The liquidated damages clause points to an amount set in the contract, and no dollar figure is printed.
The book argues with itself in a few more places. The civil sheet lists 556 cubic yards of excavation at Building 1N. The schedule of values form lists 371. The spec names four unit price items (curb concrete, joint sealant, clay tile and wall waterproofing) and says they're priced on a schedule in the bid forms. The bid forms have no such schedule. And the spec says no interior access will be allowed, on a job that sets eight sump pumps in the cellar and utility tunnels. The drawings call their own quantities approximate and put verifying them on you.
Now, how you win it. The paperwork says proposals, but nothing gets scored. The contract goes to the lowest bidder who meets the mandatory requirements and passes a qualifications test. That test is a one-page narrative showing at least five years of experience, plus at least five projects of similar scope and value finished in the last five years. The fund will try your references at least three times. If it can't verify them within 14 calendar days, you're non-responsive. Low number wins, but only if your references pick up the phone.
Your price goes on Exhibit 3, signed and notarized, as one lump sum broken down by division. The same form makes you name each sub, its trade and the agreed dollar amount, and the pieces have to add up to your bid. Everything goes in by email by 11:59 p.m. on December 18. Your number is good for 180 days.
The job runs at prevailing wage under the fund's Project Labor Agreement with the New York City Building and Construction Trades Council. The goals are 30% M/WBE and 6% service-disabled veteran-owned, and the RFB counts only New York State-certified firms. So for every $1 million in your number, the goals work out to $300,000 for state-certified M/WBE firms and $60,000 for state-certified service-disabled veteran-owned ones.
A few more gates. You have to be on the state Labor Department's public work contractor registry before you bid. A payment and performance bond is required at $200,000 or more, and the RFB doesn't ask for a bid bond. The insurance numbers don't match either. The RFB sets general liability at $2 million per occurrence and $3 million aggregate. The general conditions in the spec book say $4 million aggregate. Pollution coverage is $2 million in both, and with abatement in the work it stays on for two years after completion under the RFB and three years under the general conditions. No estimate or budget is printed in the RFB, the spec book or the bid forms.
One for the suppliers. The flood gates are removable aluminum flood logs, and the basis of design is the Flood Panel Mega Flood Log System, with Orange Flood Control also listed. The same list includes an approved equal, and the next line says substitutions aren't permitted. The contractor also has to build a temporary flood chamber to test the barriers.
What to do now. Send in Exhibit 1 right away. October 9 is the last walk on the schedule. Put the nine-or-11-month question, the missing unit price schedule and the interior access question in writing by October 23, the first-round deadline. Answers post November 6. Second-round questions are due November 13, with answers on November 24. Any date change comes by addendum. Read every one before you put a number on Exhibit 3.