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Week of Feburary 24, 2005 |
| Contractor says airport terminal should not be re-bid By Sherri C. RantaThe lone bidder on the American Airlines North Terminal project at Miami International Airport and some subcontractors will not resubmit bids for the $1.5 billion project that is about $256 million over budget, an official of the bidding company said. Parsons-Odebrecht officials, in a letter released this month, said they spent "several hundred thousands of dollars" to prepare the bid and think American should negotiate a solution rather than pursue a protracted re-bid process, said Gilberto Neves, executive vice president of partner Odebrecht Construction. "Without further discussion on this basis, (Parsons-Odebrecht) does not find itself tempted to increase its costs ... in the pursuit of this project through some new and undefined process," he said in a letter to American Airlines officials. "Furthermore, our previous experience in large projects in this county demonstrates that multiple abandonment and re-start of procurement processes ends up dramatically increasing the project's price and delaying projects," he wrote. Parsons-Odebrecht submitted a $500.8 million bid earlier this month to consolidate remaining North Terminal structural and interior work. But American rejected the bid because it was much higher than the $388.7 million budgeted. County aviation officials say they are working with American to come up with a plan to complete North Terminal construction. Several subcontractors, Mr. Neves said, said they would not rebid the project. He said he had to persuade them to bid the first time. "No one wanted to touch North Terminal with so much bad history," he said. Parsons-Odebrecht was awarded the South Terminal project in 2002. Miami-Dade County's Regional Transportation Committee will meet at 2 p.m. Friday for its monthly briefing on aviation-related matters, said Carlos Bonzon, the county's interim aviation director.
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