Ft. Drum estimating and bidding from contractor's point of view

The Ft. Drum Project was a high-risk, large (over $500,000,000) project which the U.S. Corps of Engineers bid on a request-for-proposal (RFP) basis rather than the more conventional closed, competitive bid basis. This paper reviews how contractors view such high-risk projects and how they evaluate and pick joint-venture partners. It then reviews the RFP method of construction contracting, listing its advantages and disadvantages from the contractor’s point of view. From the contractor’s point of view, it finds a general lack of advantages to this type of contracting and at least four major disadvantages. It discusses the situation where the owner’s budget is significantly overrun and he wants to “improve the project cost” by the use of contractor-solicited “value engineering” advice. The stated Corps' objective with RFP’s is better prices and less claims, but the writer doubts that this will occur. The writer concludes by wondering if the award of a contract to other than the low bidder does not leave the Corps in the position of just prepaying its claims.