Anybody look at this project? I am curious if it was the bid specs or not.

Not a single company submitted bids for the work most central to the City of Ithaca NY’s Green Street parking garage rehabilitation project, city officials discovered when they opened the bid documents Tuesday.

“We were slack-jawed,” said Planning and Development Director Thys Van Cort.

The city did receive bids for mechanical, electrical, plumbing and restoration work on the garage, closed since May for repairs. But by far the largest portion of the project — involving demolition of the helix, center section and bridge over Green Street — did not have any takers.
The city cannot go ahead with the project as it is planned without that work, said Mayor Carolyn Peterson.

“Yes, someone has to take it down,” Peterson said.

As of October 2005, Common Council had authorized a total of about $11.4 million in capital funds to partly demolish, then rebuild the city garage, built during the 1970s and due for extensive repairs. The lawmakers authorized the project in August 2005.

Rehabilitating the Green garage is linked closely to a large downtown development called Cayuga Green at Six Mile Creek, because the new garage is part of the overall parking plan for the retail, housing, entertainment and office spaces promised with Cayuga Green. That multi-use project is being developed by Bloomfield Schon & Partners of Cincinnati. The helix on Green Street's south side also encroaches on land needed for parts of Cayuga Green, which further links the two projects together.

The outcome of the bidding process Tuesday was surprising to the city engineering department, as well as architecture and engineering experts hired for the project, according to Van Cort.

Peterson, too, said she believed “we were all surprised to see what happened.” The portions that the city did receive bids for, however, they were “pleased” with, because they came in within estimates, Peterson said.

One of those portions is for restoration work, for which the city received bids from Spencerport, N.Y.-based Crane-Hogan Structural Systems, and Binghamton-based R. DeVincentis Construction, according to a bid tabulation sheet provided by the city controller's office.

The low bidder for that contract was Crane-Hogan, which quoted the city about $926,810 for the work. The restoration work involves all the parts of the garage the city is going to keep for continued use. R. DeVincentis submitted about $1.25 million.

Van Cort said the city could conceivably allow work on the restoration portion while they sort out the demolition work bids, although originally it was thought that the two pieces would be done roughly at the same time.
The setback caused by the lack of bids for the main demolition work could be weeks or months, depending on what officials decide to do, Van Cort said. He expects the city to rebid for the general contract work, although it's too early to tell what will happen, he said. Weeks ago, city engineering officials had estimated that demolition on the garage would begin in July, with work expected to last for about 11 months.

Tonight's Common Council agenda includes an item on discussing the bid packages.

By tonight, the city may know a little more as to why they're now faced with this hole in their garage plans, according to Peterson.

“We will find out more information in the next day or so, and decide what our next steps should be,” Peterson said. “It depends on what we learn as to why this may have occurred.”

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