Before discussing the specifics of bid shopping by the City, let's look at what bid shopping is.
Bid shopping at its basic level is repeatedly putting a project out to bid while trying to reach a target number. The target number for the Millennium Square partners was around $1.2 Million dollars. The City, acting on behalf of the Millennium Square Partners, rejected the low bid on the Millennium project four times. The City then advertised for bids a fifth time, and the target number was reached when a local company that had passed up the four prior opportunities to bid came in and bid the target number. This was the first time that any local construction company had bid on the conflicted Millennium project.
You have to have full information about each bid opening to understand how the bid shopping was conducted and what was going on with the project and project estimates to cause bids to be "over" the construction estimates.
Before going into the details of each bid opening, here is a bare bones summary about the FIVE Millennium bid openings held during a nearly three year period December 2010-August 2013:
BID OPENING #1 The first bid opening is set for December 14, 2010.
a) Millennium Partners David and Tim Wild (Wild Building Contractors) and several other contractors have attended the mandatory pre-bid meeting and have acquired plans for bidding.
b) However, none or very few of the other potential bidders are aware that the Wilds are part of the Millennium Square Partnership that owns the property on which the retail shells and parking deck will be built.
c) None or very few of the other potential bidders appear to be aware that the Wilds as Millennium Partners and/or as Wild Building Contractors have been involved in project design decisions.
d) None of the potential bidders appear to be aware that David and Tim Wild as Wild Building Contractors have been involved directly with the Architect in preparing Millennium Square estimates and that David and Tim Wild as Millennium Square Partners are paying the architect's fees through a reimbursement contract with the City.
Councilman Gene Brooks, after reviewing Millennium documents with Carl Murphy and Linda Noe, informs TDOT of conflicts of interest and provides documentation indicating that the Wilds are and have been acting in concert with the Architect BIF in design and estimating for the Millennium project.
On December 10, 2010, TDOT asks the City to postpone the December 14, 2010, bidding and prepare responses to Mr. Brooks' allegations.
After receiving responses from BIF about the Wild estimates, from Wild Building Contractor's attorney claiming no conflict of interest, and additional information from Councilman Brooks, TDOT informs the City that Wild can not bid as there is a conflict of interest under 23 CFR 1.33.
The City again prepares for the first bid opening which is now set for April 5, 2011---with WBC excluded as a bidder due to prohibited conflicts of interest and "inside" information revealed through public records requests.
Many contractors who had initially expressed interest in bidding do not participate at all due to the entire process being tainted by the revelations of conflicts of interest and the action(s) of Wild and BIF and the City in concealing and/or ignoring the obvious conflicts.
Two bids were received:
Messer Construction: $2,004,905.00
Southern Constructors: $2,545,122.50
[No local contractor submitted a bid]
The bid estimate that had been prepared by Wild with a possible slight adjustment by BIF was $1,513,908.
After the 1st bid opening, the City, on behalf of the Wilds/MSP, asked that all bids be rejected due to the low bid being substantially higher than Wild's estimate.
One day after the bid opening, David Wild sent an email to Todd Morgan asking if Wild could bid on the next round if it didn't help prepare the next construction estimate. Emails indicate that Wild also contacted State Sen. Steve Southerland for "help."
TDOT's Neil Hansen tells Morgan that Wild still has a conflict and can not bid.
TDOT agrees to the rejection of all bids.
A Geotek study of the site and design changes are made by BIF, and the project is re-scoped to reduce costs.
A new local contractor (Gary Epps) is used by BIF to provide the project estimate for the second round of bidding.
BID OPENING #2 May 9, 2012
Southern Constructors is the only bidder $1,982,672.00.
[No local contractor submits a bid]
The City, on behalf of the Wilds/MSP, asks to reject the bid and re-bid a third time with only minimal changes to the design.
The project architect BIF meets with Southern Constructors to discuss the differences in the bids submitted and the project estimates.
BID OPENING #3 October 2, 2012
Three bids are submitted:
Jenkins & Stiles $1,753,964
Denark $1,769,900
Merit $1,785,246
[No local contractor submitted a bid]
The City, on behalf of Wilds/MSP, again asks to reject all bids and re-bid
The project is re-scoped with the primary change being the elimination of the private retail shells below the parking deck
BID OPENING #4 May 22, 2013
Two bids are submitted:
Southern Constructors $1,524,620
Merit Construction $1,625,754
[No local contractor submitted a bid]
The City, on behalf of the Wilds/MSP, again asks that all bids be rejected.
TDOT concurs with the City's request to reject the low bid---even though the low bid was within 7% of the architect's budget estimate of $1,428,235. [TDOT has a general policy of accepting a responsive bid that is within 10% of the estimate.]
Why did the City ask to reject a responsive bid that was so near the project budget/estimate?
An email from City Engineer Jeff Branham to City Administrator Tony Cox answers that question. Branham states that the low bid exceeds the "budget" of $1,200,000. The "budget" of $1,200,000 was not the project budget--the budget Branham refers to is Wilds/MSP target budget.
The City, knowing that MSP wants to re-bid the project, admits and cites its error in not advertising for bids in a grand division newspaper as a basis for re-bidding for a FIFTH time to get more bids!
There are to be no or only the tiniest of changes to the plans prior to the fifth bidding--meaning that the bids of Southern Constructors and Merit Construction, if they choose to bid again, are, for all practical purposes, known.
BID OPENING #5 August 15, 2013
Two bids are received:
East Tennessee Turf $1,202,000
Southern Constructors $1,478,000
East Tennessee Turf did not bid on any of the four previous bid, and this is the first time in a nearly 3-year period that any Morristown contractor submitted a bid on the local Millennium project.
Amazingly, the bid of East Tennessee Turf almost exactly matches the Wild/MSP budget/target number of $1,200,000 mentioned in Jeff Branham's email following the 4th bidding.
East Tennessee Turf's bid is about $276,000 less than that of Southern Constructors.
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