Construction in the public sector has been a tougher place to make a living for the past couple of years. While adequate funding for transportation projects still seems like a coin toss at this point, there is some activity in higher ed and K-12 that offers hope. Pitt is taking Predetermination of Responsibility submissions for two of its projects on Nov. 25. These are essentially pre-qualification forms to be approved to bid the $23 million Clapp-Langley complex and the $3.5 million Chevron Science Center jobs that DGS will put out to bid, probably in December. The projects will bid as separate prime contract offerings and won’t be from Pitt’s invited list of contractors but the PDR process keeps the projects from bidding to unqualified contractors. You can find the PDR at http://www.facmgmt.pitt.edu/CurrentProjects/

For those with a longer horizon, two major new school projects are moving ahead in the early stages of planning. West Jefferson Hills selected Turner Construction as CM for their $70 million new high school. Selection of an architect will come after the holidays and bidding is not likely until 2015. On a similar timetable, Montour School District is reviewing architectural proposals for its new $55 million elementary school.

In private sector news, Mike Coates Construction was selected for the general construction package on Duquesne Light’s new $5 million warehouse in McKeesport. And James Construction started construction on the $15 million expansion of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in downtown Greensburg. PMC Management has started work on the conversion of the upper floors of the Clark Building into 144 apartments.

WVU’s new agricultural sciences building bid earlier this afternoon and PJ Dick submitted the low bid, edging out Mascaro by $502,000 or 0.6% on $77 million. The published budget for the project was about 10% lower than the bids but the spread tells you that the budget – if it was indeed that low – was off. Here are the base bids:

PJ Dick – $76,898,000
Mascaro Construction – $77,400,000
Walsh – $80,477,000

While the local (yawn) elections were taking place and the pitched battle over highway funding rages in Harrisburg, a variety of interesting projects are being priced or otherwise in competition.

Chuck Hammel was in the news with a small but expensive conversion of 2500 Smallman Street into what he calls ‘city houses’ but there was progress of sorts on a much bigger project that Hammel is planning. Along with Oxford Development and Lincoln Properties, Hammel is proposing 300+ units of apartments just east of the Cork Factory. The project should be $40 million or more. Massaro Corp. has been involved helping with preconstruction for a couple of years. Both they and Mascaro had interviews with the development team last week to move forward in 2014.

Massaro, Mascaro, PJ Dick and Martini are submitting proposals on the 18th for the CM-at-Risk for Central Catholic’s $15 million STEM building. Massaro, Mascaro, PJ Dick, along with Jendoco and Gilbane are putting in proposals on the 14th for a significant ($25 million or more) renovation/remediation at Westinghouse’s headquarters in Cranberry Twp. Both those projects are still being designed by Stantec.

In news from West Virginia, WVU is taking design/build proposals from Astorino, Gilbane, Mascaro & PJ Dick for their new $13 million baseball stadium. Mosites Construction was the apparent low bidder on several packages for general trades, demolition & concrete on Ruby Hospital’s second phase of the $140 million South Tower expansion being construction managed by Yates Construction. A few exits south in Bridgeport, Dominion is taking proposals from development teams for a new 100,000 square foot office in the White Oaks Business Park. They are working with six teams including Clayco, March Westin, Alter Group, Regency, thrasher & WYK.

Following up several of the smaller projects that bid in September/October, Volpatt Construction is underway with St. Clair Hospital’s $1.2 million urgent care facility at 2000 Oxford Drive in Bethel; St. Clair also chose Massaro for their $2 million interventional radiology suite at their main hospital; A. Martini was awarded a contract for Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services’ $4 million-plus tenant improvement in their new building on the Boulevard of Allies. Rycon is working on the $3.5 million build-out of the former Dick’s space in South Hills Village. The space will become an Ulta and DWS store.

According to the Pittsburgh Builders Exchange, bids are being taken by Tri-C Construction for a new 80-room Holiday Inn Express in Butler, PA. The new hotel will be on North Duffy Rd. across from the Butler VA Hospital in the Butler Crossings shopping center that is being developed by Tri-C’s parent company, Cedarwood Development. The property is the first of 2 hotels planned for the same corridor. Horizon Properties from Southpointe received approval from Butler Township to develop another 80-room hotel less than a mile away on New Castle Rd., this one a Hampton Inn flag.

The more inexplicable project is a third hotel but a few mile away in downtown Butler. The city redevelopment agencies received an RCAP grant to make an 80+ room hotel happen behind Main Street near McKean St. Developer J S Capital – the owners of the Fairfield Inn up in Slippery Rock – is reportedly involved in the Butler project, which will be a Marriott flag.

There are actually some fundamentals supporting these 200+ rooms of new hotels. For one, the gas industry is more steadily mobilizing in Butler County. Western Butler is adjacent to the more active areas in PA right now because of the Utica Shale exploration that is taking place in Lawrence and Mercer Counties. More importantly, the occupancy and revenue per room umbers for the limited hotels in the Butler area are relatively high. With a new medical center being built at the VA, visitation is expected to increase. The state aid for the downtown project also props up the fundamentals, reducing the private developers exposure significantly.

Ground was broken this past week for the $70 million Gardens at Market Square being developed by Millcraft and built by Turner Construction. While that was the biggest splash, construction is getting underway on other projects that were both under the radar and on the screen.

PJ Dick has started on a $12 million, 48,000 sq. ft. expansion of Fuhrer’s refrigerated warehouse and offices on South Side. Another warehouse project, a 68,322 sq. ft.  job for Restaurant Depot is getting underway in the Strip by design/builder Oliver/Hatcher Construction. Faros Properties picked Turner Construction to do the first phase of their renovations to the Washington Plaza Apartments, a $3 million project; and Carl Walker Construction has started repairs to the Washington Plaza parking garage.

McKeesport Area School District awarded contracts last week for its $15 million Founders Hall expansion. The successful contractors were Gurtner Construction for general; R & B Mechanical for HVAC; Wheels Mechanical for plumbing; and A-1 Electric for the electrical.

State and local governments – including school districts – have been plagued by emptier coffers and reduced tax revenues for several years. That reality has reduced capital spending from the public sector, although a number of larger projects have moved ahead. At the current moment, however, a handful of $15-30 million public jobs are bucking this trend.

Over the next 30-60 days these projects will bid: $18 million Holiday Park Elementary School in Plum (Aug. 26); $34 million East Liberty Transit Center (Sept. 5); $19 million Frazer Elementary/Middle School (Sept. 18); $30 million Cathedral of Learning Elevator Modernization (design/build due Oct. 10); and the $23 million Fox Chapel High (tentatively scheduled to go out mid-Oct.).

In the private sector, the $15 million Westmoreland Museum of Art took bids on its expansion from Jendoco, Massaro and James Construction. The $70 million Gardens at Market Square office/hotel development broke ground this week. Massaro Corp. was selected as the CM At-risk for the $14 million Meadville Medical Mall and a $2.5 million renovation to Pitt’s Barco Law Library. Turner was selected as CM for the $28 million Carnegie Science Center expansion. Dollar Bank awarded the contract for its new Richland Mall branch to MBM Contracting.