New Rochelle wants new stairs at the Pinebrook Tennis Center, and it wants them in 60 calendar days. The bid documents are free, the quantities are printed, and there is a scheduling problem sitting in the middle of the spec book that every bidder should price before the September 17 question deadline.
The job, RFB-PR-2026-041, tears out the existing stairs and rebuilds them in the same spot with ADA handrails, cheek walls and a mid-level landing. It adds concrete and asphalt between the top of the stairs and the courts to get the slopes right, rebuilds the drive access from the parking lot with new curbing and a drainage swale, and reconstructs the accessible parking area for compliant slopes, dimensions, striping and signage. Bids close Wednesday, September 30 at 3 p.m. at City Hall.
Here is the part worth reading twice. The asphalt pay item is a cold plant recycled pavement section, and that section says: perform all work between May 1 and October 7. No placement below 45 degrees, and none if the forecast drops below 40 within 24 hours. Bids open September 30. Award, contract execution and bonds take ten business days after notice. There is no version of that calendar that puts a paving crew on this site before October 7. The 10-day cure required before any overlay makes it worse.
The rest of the calendar is just as tight. Compaction earthwork is barred November 1 through April 1 without an approved winter earthwork submittal, and the spec says outright that those submittals should not be expected to be approved automatically. Road plates have to sit flush from November 15 to April 1, and the city can extend that window whenever the weather says so. Sixty calendar days, $250 a day in liquidated damages, and no damages for delay — a delay claim on this contract buys time, never money.
Work hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, federal holidays out, anything else needs the city's approval first. You cannot stage in the right of way or on private property; you find and pay for your own approved staging area and restore it when you leave. And the courts stay open the entire time — the drawings require the work be phased so public access to the tennis facility is never interrupted, with four feet of pedestrian right of way maintained around the work area.
The city printed its own estimated quantities, which is not something you always get on a job this size. The Bid Schedule carries 22 unit-price items: 310 cubic yards of unclassified excavation, 160 cubic yards of flowable fill, 185 cubic yards of Type 1 subbase, 180 tons of full-depth R.A.P. asphalt, 375 linear feet of cast-in-place concrete curb, 150 feet of sawcutting, 50 feet of steel rod safety railing, 500 feet of striping, 200 feet of silt fence, three security bollards, three sign posts, one flagpole, one manhole frame reset, one water valve box top, and mobilization. Concrete is 5.5 cubic yards of five-inch sidewalk and 7.5 cubic yards of eight-inch stairs and cheek walls.
That 13 yards of flatwork matters more than it looks. At 10 cubic yards or more, an ACI Certified Concrete Flatwork Finisher has to directly supervise all finishing, and an ACI Certified Concrete Flatwork Technician has to perform it. Proof goes to the engineer before anything gets poured. The concrete itself comes in three strengths on one small job: 5,000 psi for the stair and cheek wall footings, 4,000 for standard sidewalk and curb, 4,500 for the bollards.
The railing is a long-lead item hiding in a 50-foot pay line. Besides shop drawings, the spec demands an assembled sample built from full-size components — top rail, post, cables — before fabrication, and every bolt and nut has to be tamper-proof, with the special tools handed over to the city at the end. There are twelve grouted steel pipe sleeves, six per handrail run.
Four things in the packet contradict each other, and all four are worth a question. The spec book's own table of contents warns in bold that the technical sections carry state DOT pay units bidders should not follow — items and units come off the Bid Form. Spec section 609.01 describes Belgian block curb, new and reset; the Bid Schedule line 609.01 says cast-in-place concrete curb, 375 feet. Those are not the same money. The tack coat item shows 20 gallons on the schedule while the spec says there is no separate pay item for it. And the state wage schedule carries the job as RFP-PR-2026-041 while every bid form says RFB — the wage schedule is the document that has to match the contract you sign.
Two administrative traps. New Rochelle will not accept a bid bond on this job — the 5 percent deposit has to be a certified check, cashier's check or money order, and cash is out too. And you have to be registered in the state Department of Labor's public work contractor registry at the time you submit; the packet says an unregistered bidder is non-responsive, full stop. The registration certificate is a return-with-bid page, alongside the A-19 and A-20 minority utilization certifications, which the city says will also sink a bid if they are missing.
Subcontracting is capped at 49 percent, so the winner self-performs the majority. Westchester County plan goals run 11 to 13 percent minority manpower per trade. The city's newer Chapter 31 rules layer on top: targeted workers for at least 20 percent of work hours, a goal of 20 percent of subcontract dollars to city-based businesses including trucking, and one newly enrolled apprentice employed at least 1,000 hours for every 20,000 construction hours worked. There is also a Workforce Development Rebate line item that pays back 25 percent of verified eligible labor costs — with the city reserving the right to change that percentage by addendum before award, so watch the bids page.
One more thing the documents say that the bid title does not. The project sign specified for this job is a City of New Rochelle flood mitigation sign — "Hard at Work: Drainage Solutions for Flood Prevention" — carrying a public works project number and pointing to the city's flooding page. A job advertised as pedestrian access is signed as flood work. There is no separate pay item for the sign either; the four-by-six panel, the six-year vinyl, the maintenance and the removal all come out of your other line items.
What to do next: the pre-bid meeting is Thursday, September 10 at 11 a.m. in the parking lot at 547 Pinebrook Boulevard. It is not mandatory, but the paving season, the curb-type conflict and the phasing are all cheaper to settle there than in a change order. Questions close September 17 at 3 p.m.; answers post September 23. Documents are a free download from the city's bid page, and addenda post there too — checking is on you.