Ken,
A number of things can be done to level the field.  If I am running the bid
for the owner I restrict the bids to companies that have a minimum number of
years in the trade, do a similar dollar volume of business each year, and
not only cannot use sub's but have to list crews with alternates that become
an integral part of the bid.
As we have discussed before, prequalification and the bidding process takes
an inordinate chunk of the budget and if there are many trades and a CM the
costs become a ludicrous proportion of the dollars, hence no bids and the
creation of project teams  is the way to go.
Leland
-----Original Message-----
From: ARWNY <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, April 03, 1998 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: Contractor Prequalification


>When the system of prequalification for contractors on historic
preservation
>projects works it is beautiful. When it does not it is another question.
>
>I have had experience where we were the only bidder to submit historic
>preservation prequalification on public bids (open to all bidders) and the
>other bidders, who never provided any form of qualification, were awarded
the
>project. In a very strict sense the non-submission of prequalification
forms
>(let alone if the contractors are qualified or not) should be construed as
>non-responsive with the result that their bids are excluded from
>consideration, with the same effect if they did not provide a bid bond or a
>non-collusion form. I think the process of pre-qualification becomes a
problem
>if the lawyers, accountants, and politicians higher up in the power
structure
>have not bought into the idea. Bidding on these projects involves a
>considerable cost. I want there to be prequalification from the perspective
of
>leveling the field so that we are actually competing against our peers. So
>often the judgement to award a project, based on low bid, takes no notice
of
>the ability of the contractor to respect the unique nature of the
structure.
>As a result, there are a lot of really fine historic properties owned by
the
>public that I will not even consider making a bid on, and there are a lot
of
>contractors doing irreversible damage to *our* historic properties.
>
>][<en