In a rented trailer that has served as the Marathon’s city hall for almost 10 years, Marathon City Clerk Diane Clavier opened six bids for the new City Hall. The base bids range from $4.288 million to $5.018 million. Over the next 10 days, city staff will examine the proposals more carefully before ranking them and presenting them to the Marathon Council some time later this month.
From least expensive to most expensive, they are:
- MVP Contractors: $4,288,7171
- Pedro Falcon: $4,290,000
- Burke Construction: $4,634,761
- Botsford-Overholt Construction: $4,986,942
- Emerald Construction: $5,018,236
- West Construction: $5,247,048
The numbers above are base bids only. However each proposal outlines several alternative construction scenarios.
“For example, we may decide to do tile instead of carpet. We have to go over each alternative with our engineer and designer,” said Carlos Solis, Marathon Public Works Manager. “Once we make those decisions across the board, then we establish the true low bid.”
After that process, city staff will start checking all the other criteria: the company’s financial resources, experience, record of timeliness and whether or not the firm is involved in any litigation.
The bid will be awarded to the qualified low bidder, including local preference stipulations. Those rules were changed from a 10 percent discount preference to Keys builders off the entire cost of the project (amounting to $500,000 for a $5 million project) to a sliding scale that also stipulates established corporate residency and a local workforce. In the case of City Hall, local builders will be given a 2 percent discount for preference under the new rules.
Of the contractors that applied only Pedro Falcon and Botsford-Overholt are likely to be considered local.
This is the second round of construction bids for Marathon’s City Hall. The first were scrapped when bids came in at $1 million more than city officials forecast. Since then, the plans have been redrawn for more modest, ground-level facility. Botsford-Overholt was the low bidder in that scenario at $7.1 million because of the $10 percent local preference bonus, bumping out West Construction that bid $6.6.
Pedro Falcon Construction of Big Pine Key recently completed the Monroe County fire station on Conch Key.
The final rankings will be presented to the Marathon City Council no later than Tuesday, Oct. 21 at the regularly scheduled meeting.
Editor Sara Matthis thinks community journalism is important, but not serious; likes small and weird children (she has two); prefers target practice with a zombie rat poster; and looks best with saltwater dreads. Occasionally she tortures herself with sprint-distance triathlons, but only if she has a good chance of beating her sister.
