Bidding

Fountains at Farah in East El Paso will feature 60-80 tenants

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“After almost a decade of starts and stops with two different developers, two different owners, and wrangling over city tax incentives, the 55-acre site once housing the city’s largest garment factory has finally begun its transformation into a major retail center.

The $70 million, 600,000-square-foot The Fountains at Farah is scheduled to open by November 2013 at the site bordered by Hawkins Boulevard and Interstate 10. The 1.2-million-square-foot, 145-store Cielo Vista Mall is across the street.

Ray Catlin, executive vice president of EMJ Corp., a Tennessee builder specializing in retail centers that is the general contractor for The Fountains at Farah, said this is one of probably three or four major retail centers under construction in the United States. The recession’s lingering effects have held back projects, he said.

“Not a lot of these are going up. I’d say this will be one of the premier ones. It will be pretty nice” because of the architecture and amenities, Catlin said.

Catlin said EMJ wants to get as many local subcontractors involved in building The Fountains as it can. It is now getting subcontractors’ bids for portions of the project, he said. The developers’ agreement with the city requires at least 25 percent of the companies and/or labor involved in the project to be from El Paso.

Catlin estimated more than 500 construction workers will be involved in the project.”

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Assurance Screening has contracted with EMJ Corporation to assist with improving efficiencies with subcontractor prequalification on the The Fountains at Farah in El Paso, TX. Assurance will assist with the collection and verification of requested documents, as well as, perform comprehensive business screening checks on all companies submitting bids for the project.

Companies wishing to bid on The Fountains at Farah in El Paso can email enroll@proqualverified.com for more details and to begin the prequalification process for EMJ Corporation.

Study: Nearly one-third of small contractors report ‘bait and switching’

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“For Eric Basu, stories of being wronged on contracting work go on and on. There was a time his San Diego-based defense company, Sentek Global, joined as a subcontractor to a larger, prime contractor that wanted Sentek on board in part, Basu suspects, because his business fulfills a state set-aside requirement for veteran-owned companies. After the prime won the bid, Basu said they stopped returning his calls.

Basu is not alone in his caution. Nearly a third of subcontractors reported having at some point been “stiffed” on a contract with a prime, according to a recent American Express survey. For the report, AmEx surveyed 740 small federal contractors. While the practice raises ethical issues, it’s not illegal: Contracting regulations don’t mandate that a prime firm must stick with any particular sub.

The report found that nearly half of active small firm contractors have successfully pursued subcontracting as a procurement strategy, and these businesses derive an average of 25 percent of their procurement business from subcontracts. But for many, being listed as a subcontractor on a winning bid sometimes results in disappointment rather than new business. The survey found that 29 percent of small firms have been victims of “baiting and switching,” in which a prime contractor wins a bid with a specific subcontractor but then either uses a different sub in the execution of the contract, or simply keeps the work for themselves.”

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NYS Comptroller’s Audit Finds Fraudulent Construction Bids Made to SUNY Downstate Medical Center

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“An audit that was triggered by three anonymous letters revealed that fake bids were made for construction contracts at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, says New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

According to the audit, Brooklyn-based Eagle Two Construction and its affiliated fake companies were paid $1.2 million by SUNY between January 1996 and October 2010. The affiliated companies, which are all located at the same address, had submitted competing bids in six separate procurements, some of which were forged, according to the findings made by DiNapoli’s auditors and investigators.

“SUNY Downstate Medical Center has worked closely with the office of the state comptroller on its audit of Downstate’s procurement practices and cooperated fully with its review,” said the hospital in a statement. “We will continue to work with [DiNapoli] to ensure compliance with state procurement regulations, monitor purchasing practices, and reinforce internal controls.”

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