04-01-13 Special Meeting of La Porte City Council

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The Farrington Boulevard Utility Relocation ContractAward: Advertised, Sealed Bid #13012 –Farrington Boulevard Utility Relocate was opened and read on March 12, 2013.Solicitation requests were advertised in the Houston Chronicle, posted on the City of La Porte website and notices were mailed out to 27vendors.Seven additional vendors either made inquiries or picked up plans.Paskey, Incorporated, located in La Porte, and Horseshoe Construction, located in the La Porte ETJ area, were the only bidders. Paskey, Incorporated provided the lowest and best bid of $539,849.02 for the Base Bid. Staff included an Alternate Bid for the “Section A” items listed on the attached bid tab. The Alternate Bid for the Paskey bid was $14,107.00 less than the Base Bid. The Alternate Bid method includes tapping both ends of the new water main connections that will reduce service disruptions for the water customers and is the method recommended by staff. A competent, capable contractor is especially needed on this project considering the maintenance of traffic requirements, necessary precision, and the tight timeframe. Staff’s concern going into the project bid was: 1) getting a competent contractor, 2) price. Certainly staff is familiar with Paskey, Incorporated and is confident in theirwork. As for price, construction costs are sharply rising in this region due to the large volume of work for both private and public projects now being bid. Staff well-considered rebidding this project but ultimately concluded that there is real potential for the city to end up with a less competent contractor at the same cost or greater than this bid that the city now has in hand. Plus the project would be significantly delayed which has other ramifications perhaps for coordinating the proposed work infront of Rizzuto Elementary. Given the totality of considerations associated with this contract including the complexity of the project, the timeframe necessary for Harris County to complete their project, and the on-going coordination required betweenthe city and Harris County for other projects within the City of La Porte, staff recommends awarding the construction contract to Paskey, Incorporated in the amount of $525,742.02 plus $52,574.20 (10%) contingency for a total project allocation of $578,316.22. Other Considerations: A change order in the amount of $67,770.50 for this project will also be considered at this April 1 council meeting. If approved, this would increase the total contract allocation to $646,086.72. The $646,086.72 expenditure from the Utility Fund will reduce the number of days of working capital in this fund to approximately 60-days total and less than the 90-day working capital goal recently established by city council.