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TULIP GROVE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Good afternoon Community of Tulip Grove, Welcome back to a new school year and hope you had a great summer! The purpose of this newsletter is to provide an update to the Tulip Grove Community regarding the status of the Major Renovation & Addition project. Phases 1 and 2 have been completed and communicated in previously issued newsletters. This update will focus on the 3 rd phase leading up to Construction. During this phase, our project goals were to receive State approval for the project to proceed into procurement, procurement and successful award of the construction team, PGCPS Board approval for contract award, State approval for contract award, DPIE issuance of permit approval for construction, and the commencement of construction. Although there have been some successfully completed critical activities, we have incurred a couple challenges through-out this phase that will have an impact on the project schedule and delayed the commencement of construction. STATE CD DESIGN APPROVAL As a requirement by the state, all construction projects over $350,000 are required to submit numerous design submissions for review and approval prior to proceeding to procurement and finalizing contract award. The State’s design review process is typically 6 weeks per submission. After nearly 7 months of review, the project received approval from the state to proceed to procurement in April. The state’s approval was contingent upon the design team incorporating the state’s comments within an updated bid set package prior to issuance to bid. The design team work feverishly to provide this updated bid set to PGCPS Department of Capital Programs for review, acceptance, and issuance to procurement in May. Procurement After receiving approval from the state, the project was finally able to proceed into procurement. The project was submitted to PGCPS Department of Purchasing and Supply Services to procure the services of a contractor to construct the TGES Major Renovation and Addition project. The solicitation was issued to bid on June 7th, with the bid opening scheduled for July 11 th . Due to the amount of bid clarifications and addenda issued, the decision was made to extend the bid opening date to July 20 th . The extension was provided to allow sufficient time for the contractors to review the clarifications and make adjustments to their proposals, but meant the project couldn’t be submitted to the Board for contract award approval during the scheduled July 19 th Board meeting. On July 20 th , the bid opened resulting in two responsive bids, Tuckman-Barbee Construction Company, Inc. and Keller Brothers, Inc. After review, PGCPS Department of Capital Programs identified Tuckman-Barbee Construction Company as the Lowest Responsive Bidder and submitted our recommendation for contract award to the Board for final approval during the scheduled August 25 th Board meeting. A few days after the contract award submission to the Board, PGCPS Department of Purchasing and Supply received a “Request to Withdraw Bid” letter from Tuckman-Barbee, the successful lowest responsive bidder. Upon meeting with the contractor, it was determined their original bid was substantially low due to a bid calculation error. As a result of this error, both contractors were given the opportunity to submit their “Best and Final Offer” for final review and acceptance on August 15, 2016, resulting in Tuckman-Barbee being the lowest responsive bidder. After Tuckman-Barbee’s BAFO was received and again determined to be the lowest responsive bid, the contract award submission to the Board was amended to include the revised pricing and was scheduled to be approved during the August 25 th Board meeting. The morning of August 25 th , PGCPS Department of Purchasing and Supply Services received a letter from Keller Brothers, Inc. protesting the contract award of TGES Major Renovation and Addition project to Tuckman-Barbee Construction Company, Inc. Immediately, PGCPS Capital Programs department was informed and forced to withdraw the contract award from the Board’s agenda scheduled to be approved later that night. The result of past bid protests of other projects resulted in contract awards being placed on hold for weeks, with the final outcome requiring the solicitation to be re-advertised. Based on past history, our department has decided to cancel the contract award and proceed with reissuing the solicitation for bid. While not an easy decision, we feel it is in the best interest of the project, TGES community, and PGCPS. By re-advertising the solicitation, we anticipate generating additional contractor’s interest to competitively bid this great project. Major Renovation Quarterly Update | 9/12/2016 3 RD PHASE PROJECT SUMMARY
