11. Bidding
Your architect and attorney will be involved throughout the bidding process. Each state and locality has specific rules for bidding on public construction jobs, and failing to observe the rules can lead to major problems. Both your architect and your attorney will examine the bid documents, and they will be present when bids are opened to be sure that all legal requirements are met.
The bidding process includes:
- Advertisements announcing that the project is ready to bid. An advertisement will include a date and place when bid documents will first be available, a date for a pre-bid meeting, and a date and time for receipt of bids.
- Formal opening of bids after the deadline for their receipt has passed. Late bids—even if they are just minutes late—are rejected unopened. Bidders use forms supplied by the architect, certifying that they are bidding on all required components of the project, and certifying that they have the necessary bonding to cover both their failure to do the agreed work and their failure to pay their subcontractors.
- Customarily, the bid goes to the lowest bidder, but there are exceptions to this rule. Consult with your architect and attorney.
- The library always reserves the right to reject all bids and start over. This right is important, particularly if all bids are too high and it becomes necessary to redesign the project.
The pre-bid conference is important. By answering any questions in front of all bidders, the architect tries to make sure that no bidders can later claim that they were not party to basic information. Minutes are kept and distributed to all bidders. In many cases, the architect will state at the conference that all oral responses are non-binding, and that the written response to questions (in the form of an addendum to the specifications that is distributed to all bidders) is the only binding response.
Most bid documents include addenda issued after the pre-bid conference to clarify questions raised at the conference or other questions raised later. These addenda are a routine part of the bidding process and should not be interpreted as a failure of your architect to do things right the first time.
Because of the importance of formal addenda, it's a good idea to warn your staff not to comment informally to prospective bidders when they visit the library. Ask your staff to show bidders anything they want to see, but to refer all questions to the architect.
