The reconstruction of four schools on St. Croix will now move forward after the Public Finance Authority approved a contract with the Suffolk-CBNA Joint Venture.
Rebuild USVI’s St. Croix Education bundle of projects consists of the Alexander Henderson, Alfredo Andrews, Claude O. Markoe, and Pearl B. Larson schools, as well as the St. Croix Administrative Center. Office of Disaster Recovery Director Adrienne Williams-Octalien said that the solicitation for this bundle received three responses. Not only did Suffolk-CBNA submit the lowest overall project cost, at approximately $789 million, but they “presented a comprehensive approach for the project,” said Ms. Williams-Octalien. The well-prepared proposal included “a detailed sequencing on all the schools with rendering layouts,” she added.
Noting that “the project was solicited for design-build services, where the contractor is responsible for design and the construction of the project in a collaborative approach,” the ODR director pointed out that Suffolk-CBNA’s proposed subcontractor, Zinskovic LLC, is a “major participant” in the team, which is already working on the St. Thomas bundle.
Notwithstanding the hefty total price tag, on Friday the board was only asked to approve preliminary work; $234,000,994 for pre-construction services, as well as $44,995,954 for the first phase of construction.
Meanwhile, PFA directors moved to award the North Central St. Croix Horizontal Infrastructure Bundle to their second choice, after the contractor initially selected withdrew from the negotiation process.
“This solicitation was initially awarded to Persons Services Corporation based on the evaluation committee’s recommendation,” Ms. Williams-Octalien said. However, during contract negotiations, “all of this additional supporting documentation was required,” and ultimately Persons Services Corp rescinded their proposal. “We suspect that there may have been some difficulty in them getting what they needed to get in terms of documentation relating to bonding, Ms. Williams-Octalien explained. “Persons also has a number of other projects in the territory, and their correspondence also said that they did not want to adversely affect any timelines and the pace of the recovery.”
With Persons Services out of the running, the board was asked to instead award the contract to Kiewit Infrastructure South Company. “Their team’s experience and qualification and their resources meet the requirements,” Ms. Williams-Octalien said. The contract will have a total maximum value of $682,790,824, split between two phases. The North St. Croix Horizontal Infrastructure bundle includes power, water, wastewater and roadworks projects.
Between the two bundles, the PFA has greenlit a total of over $961 million worth of disaster recovery work on St. Croix.
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