Wake BRT leaders look to encourage bids from contractors for first of it's kind $97M project in NC

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- After two failed advertisements, leaders with the Wake Bus Rapid Transit Plan, known as Wake BRT are discussing ways to get contractors excited about submitting bids for the project.

Previously, the City of Raleigh published two requests for proposal (RFP) advertisements for the project. The first announcement resulted in no project bids. The city advertised for bids again with the lone bid coming from the Fred Smith Company.

However, the bid was 'significantly higher' than the $97 million that has been made available for the project.

City Council officially rejected the bid proposal earlier this month.

Monday, city staff with the Wake BRT plan met with contractors and other stakeholders during a meeting called "Industry Day", which was designed to get important feedback from the contractor community on what part, or parts, of the plan they are interested in.

"We have some things that we can still learn from. We heard we wanted to break it into smaller geographic pieces that would be more achievable for different types of contractors. There was some truth to that," said Het Patel, program manager for the City of Raleigh's Wake BRT project. "But there were some packages that may be too small or may not be really what someone is interested in. So we need to figure that back out and see about bringing it back into regular project work."

One of the smaller packages included clearing and grubbing work for a portion of the area. Contractors present Monday unanimously balked at taking on that project as a standalone.

SEE ALSO | Raleigh businesses along future Bus Rapid Transit Line wary but hopeful

Additional smaller packages include two separate horizontal roadway work areas and a package just for vertical station work, such as building bus stations and platform work.

Following the meeting, Patel mentioned he felt 'confident' about the turnout and the feedback.

"Contractors help us understand what can we do differently to try and get the project to be more competitive and still stay within the budget and try to get the project into construction," said Patel. "Certainly every year you are getting hit with inflation. So that's why every time we advertise a project we refresh our engineer's estimate because there's inflation hits through unit prices to overall project delays so we do factor that in."

Patel said he wants to take the feedback gained from Industry Day back to project staff before re-advertising in the spring at a date that has not been announced yet. He also said he anticipates construction to officially begin in summer 2025 and estimates completion to be three to three and a half years, which is scaled back from the original two years leaders were asking for.