Low bidder on sewer system for agri-business park questions why it didn't get the contract

The management of Blue Heron Construction, out of Jordan, is a little baffled about why they didn't get the contract for the sewer project at the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park.

Genesee County Economic Development Center awarded the contract to Sergi Construction out of East Aurora even though Blue Heron's bid was $200,000 lower than Sergi's.

"It just seemed quite strange to award the contract to the second bidder," said C.W. Gregory, chief of operations for Blue Heron.

Blue Heron bid $2,024,101.50. Sergi bid $2,227,810.

Mark Masse, VP of operations for GCEDC, listed three main reasons the agency went with Sergi over Blue Heron.

First, according to Masse, Blue Heron officials admitted that they didn't have time to fully review the specs for the job. Clark Patterson Lee, the architect of the project, raised a concern that Blue Heron's bid didn't fully account for all the possible variables in the project.

Second, Clark Patterson's staff expressed concern that Blue Heron underestimated the amount of epoxy that would be needed to complete the project. The difference could mean from $20,000 to $60,000 in additional cost, while, according to Masse, Sergi overestimated the amount of epoxy needed by $60,000.

Third, Blue Heron, Masse said, has more projects in the pipeline than Sergi.

"Blue Heron has a sizable backlog of work," Masse said. "We were concerned that they would not be able to meet the aggressive time line that we needed them to meet in order to complete the project on time."

The first project in the agri-business park, Alpina products, is scheduled to break ground before the end of summer and GCEDC is contractually obligated to deliver a sewer system up to spec and on time.

Matt Rodenhizer, V.P. of Blue Heron, said he doesn't think GCEDC can legally bypass the low bidder based on the amount of work the low bidder has under contract. He also said that even if more epoxy was need, the Blue Heron bid would still be more than $70,000 lower than Sergi's.

The company is considering legal action and is also waiting on a letter of explanation from Clark Patterson that Rodenhizer said he isn't sure they will get, even though they've requested one.

Gregory said when it came to specifications for epoxy, the bid document and the spec document weren't necessarily aligned and even Clark Patterson's reps seemed confused on the point when Blue Heron interviewed for the job.

Gregory and Rodenhizer disputed Masse's claim that Blue Heron hadn't thoroughly reviewed the documents.

They also said the company has more than enough manpower to complete the project on time.

"They don't know how big of a company we are," Gregory said. "We could have put two or three crews on the project to get it done on time."

Currently, Blue Heron has four contracts totaling more than $5 million on other projects through Clark Patterson that are closing out or well under way, said Rodenhizer.

"We've never had a problem with Clark Patterson before," Gregory said. "We've worked well with them and it was a shock after the fact not to get the contract."