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May 31, 2016

Why Sound Transit is re-advertising the $170M Northgate Station contract

By BENJAMIN MINNICK
Journal Construction Editor

Just over a year ago, Mortenson Construction was selected to provide preconstruction services for Northgate Station project N160, a prelude to the GC/CM contract for which Mortenson could have self-performed up to 70 percent of the work.

But last month Sound Transit re-advertised the $170 million-$190 million project under a design-bid-build contract. Bids are now due June 15.

Sound Transit says Mortenson's preconstruction contract was terminated on Feb. 12. At that time, Mortenson was seeking sub-bid packages for elevators and escalators that had a Feb. 24 bid opening date.

Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray wrote in an email that “Sound Transit contracts generally have a clause that allows us to terminate a contract if it is determined that termination would be in the best interest of the project. We made that determination near the end of the preconstruction phase of the project and chose not to continue our contract with Mortenson for the construction phase work.”

The DJC obtained the termination letter dated Feb. 12 from Sound Transit under a public information request.

The letter from Ted Lucas, director of procurement and contracts at Sound Transit, is addressed to John Nowoj, vice president of operations at Mortenson.

The letter states:

“... As we prepare to move into the construction phase of the project, we have reassessed our confidence in your preparedness to successfully perform the N160 contract work. In particular, we are concerned about the cumulative effect of personnel changes that have occurred over the past year. We also have concerns regarding your current team's experience in building elevated guideway structures and transit stations, critical elements of the N160 scope of work.

“Because of these concerns, (Mortenson's) work on the preconstruction services contract is terminated effective today, February 12, 2016. We are also canceling MACC Negotiations and will not execute the N160 Construction Contract that includes Advanced Works Package.”

The DJC asked Mortenson to comment and the company responded with this emailed statement:

“... At completion of our preconstruction services contract, Sound Transit notified us that they elected to move forward with traditional hard bid delivery for construction of the project. When we asked for the rationale behind the decision, Sound Transit indicated in a letter that their decision was based on personnel changes, which came as a surprise to us since the two senior team members Mortenson added were both formally vetted and approved by Sound Transit earlier in preconstruction. No further explanation was provided.

“However, we respect Sound Transit's discretion to move forward with a hard bid delivery.”

At the time of termination, the preconstruction services contract with Mortenson was about 97 percent complete and designs were 99 percent complete, according to Sound Transit. The full design package was received by Sound Transit on Feb. 16.

In addition to the transit station, the N160 contract includes less than a mile of guideway between the Northeast 92nd Street tunnel portal and Northgate Mall, and a five-story underground garage containing 450 park-and-ride stalls and 144 surface-level stalls for shoppers.

Construction was scheduled to start this spring and finish in late 2019. It's unclear if rebidding will affect the schedule. Sound Transit did not immediately respond to an inquiry about that.

Hewitt is the station architect, Jacobs Associates is the engineer and North Star is the management consultant.

In 2014, Mortenson was awarded 849 points in a competition for N160 with two joint-venture teams. They were scored on proposals, interviews and pricing based on the GC/CM fee, negotiated self-perform fee, and general conditions costs.

The other teams were Kiewit in a joint venture with Hoffman Construction (832 points) and Stacy and Witbeck in a joint venture with Atkinson Construction (778).

A Mortenson representative said the firm does not plan to compete for the rebid because “Mortenson's core business in this market is alternative delivery.”

The N160 project is part of the $1.9 billion Northgate Link extension, which is expected to open in 2021 with 4.3 miles of new track between Husky Stadium and Northgate Mall.

Sound Transit said it will take 14 minutes to travel between Northgate Station and downtown.


 


Benjamin Minnick can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.




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