Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
June 9, 2017 5:08 p.m.
Thursday, June 8, 2017 was the deadline for responses to the city’s second Invitation To Bid (ITB) for the General Aviation Building at the Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport. This building has been locally termed an aviation welcome center. Four bids were received and opened just after the 2:00 pm deadline for submission. Bids were broken down by specific elements. Total bids ranged from a low of $5.899M to a high of $7.477M, while bids for the basic building ranged from $3.5-4.6M.
The city’s General Aviation Terminal Building Evaluation Committee will convene at 1:00 pm on June 13, 2017, in the City Hall second floor conference room to review and rank the bids and to consider making an award recommendation. This will be a public meeting, open to any interested party. It should be noted that this meeting will only address the bids, not the building design.
The bidding companies were:
- Scherer Construction of Jacksonville, FL http://schererconstruction.com
- F and G Construction of Jacksonville, FL http://www.fandgconstruction.com
- West Construction of Lake Worth, FL http://www.westconstructioninc.net
- OTAK of Yulee, FL http://www.otakgroup.com
Three of the four companies (F and G, West and OTAK) had responded to the initial bid earlier this year. Scherer was a new entrant to the competition, while Xeye of Jacksonville, FL did not respond to the re-bid solicitation although they had initially expressed interest.
When the initial bids were reviewed in March, costs for the base building came in higher than anticipated. A decision was made to revise the bid documents and rebid the project. It appears that bids remain high. The bid summary appears below, with explanations of the particular elements following.
Base Bid (Building): General aviation terminal building, excluding the tail structure
Base Bid (Site): Site work for all proposed development
Bid Additive 1: Nose and tail structure, general aviation building
Bid Additive 2: Quonset hut meeting room building
Bid Additive 3: Emergency standby generator
Bid Additive 4: General aviation terminal building “under wing” fascias, soffits and exterior ceiling