Contract for new pharmacy building goes to Boston company
Greg Gentile
Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: News
11/19/09 - Suffolk Education, a unit of Suffolk Construction Co., was awarded a contract to manage the construction of the University of Rhode Island's new College of Pharmacy building.
The contract went to Suffolk out of their Boston, Mass. location as the lowest bidder of $45 million, beating out URI's usual construction company, Gilbane Inc.
The project is funded by general obligation bonds, which were approved by the Rhode Island voters two years ago.
Gilbane was the construction manager of risk for the Center for Bio Technology and Life Sciences. They were also the program manager for a number of other projects on campus including Garrity, Wiley and Eddy resident halls, the building of the Ryan Center and Boss Ice Arena and the renovation of Hope Commons.
A program manger means that the company acts as URI's construction staff during the construction, according to Director of Capital Projects Paul DePace.
This is the first time the university will work with Suffolk Education.
"It was decided rather than going [with] construction management and risks like we did on the CBLS building this project for pharmacy will go to general contractors," DePace said. "That is a different way of doing business; a construction manager is more of a partner with the owner in delivering a project. The general contractor is a more adversarial form of contracting."
This September nine construction companies submitted their cost proposals to URI. Suffolk ended up being the lowest bidder.
"They were [the] considerably low [bidder] on the project. DePace said. "Now, to someone in the construction business when someone is away from the pack you are always concerned they made a mistake or missed something, but frankly you will never really know."
Once the school has a low bidder, the university calls them in to meet with the design and project team to make sure they understand all of the details that are necessary to build the building. They also review the bid proposal to make sure nothing in the plans was skipped.
The contract went to Suffolk out of their Boston, Mass. location as the lowest bidder of $45 million, beating out URI's usual construction company, Gilbane Inc.
The project is funded by general obligation bonds, which were approved by the Rhode Island voters two years ago.
Gilbane was the construction manager of risk for the Center for Bio Technology and Life Sciences. They were also the program manager for a number of other projects on campus including Garrity, Wiley and Eddy resident halls, the building of the Ryan Center and Boss Ice Arena and the renovation of Hope Commons.
A program manger means that the company acts as URI's construction staff during the construction, according to Director of Capital Projects Paul DePace.
This is the first time the university will work with Suffolk Education.
"It was decided rather than going [with] construction management and risks like we did on the CBLS building this project for pharmacy will go to general contractors," DePace said. "That is a different way of doing business; a construction manager is more of a partner with the owner in delivering a project. The general contractor is a more adversarial form of contracting."
This September nine construction companies submitted their cost proposals to URI. Suffolk ended up being the lowest bidder.
"They were [the] considerably low [bidder] on the project. DePace said. "Now, to someone in the construction business when someone is away from the pack you are always concerned they made a mistake or missed something, but frankly you will never really know."
Once the school has a low bidder, the university calls them in to meet with the design and project team to make sure they understand all of the details that are necessary to build the building. They also review the bid proposal to make sure nothing in the plans was skipped.
Be the first to comment on this story