District changes position on pre-qualifying contractors

The school district's decision to pre-qualify contractors does not mean other building contractors will be prevented from bidding for work on the new $45 million building program.

Trustees asked contractors interested in bidding on school building projects to submit a thick packet this summer with information detailing their work experience, references, company background and years involved in the construction business. In July, building program manager Southern Management announced seven contractors participated in the process and were pre-qualified to bid on school building projects.

This pre-qualified contractor list does not exclude other contractors from bidding on the district's future school building projects, finance director Jim Bridges said. Those projects include a new Gaffney High stadium, Gaffney High ninth grade addition, Limestone Learning Center, and a 6-classroom addition at Goucher Elementary.

"The state procurement code does not allow us to restrict any contractors from bidding on the projects. We do hope pre-qualifying contractors will help the district get better contractors working on its new school buildings," Bridges said. "These are pre-qualified contractors where we have checked their references and researched. We are favorable to them in the bid process by notifying them directly about an upcoming project when we advertise for bids."

However, state Budget and Control Board spokesman Michael Sponhour said a pre-qualified contractor list is allowed and is usually done to limit the bidding process to a group of preferred vendors such as contractors.

The seven contractors pre-qualified are Beam Construction, Clayton Construction, Contract Construction, Edcon Construction, Farley Associates, Randolph Builders and Sossamon Construction.

Pre-qualified contractors Randolph Builders, Clayton Construction and Sossamon Construction of Gaffney from the district's list were the only contractors to submit bids last month for the Blacksburg High ninth grade addition and football field house.

School trustees awarded the contract at their Sept. 26 meeting to Randolph Builders of Charlotte for $6,317,880.

Triangle Construction Co. of Greenville is among the contractors expected to bid when the district opens bids for the Gaffney High stadium project on Oct. 26. Triangle Construction built the Dorman High School stadium.

Bridges confirmed Wednesday that Triangle Construction was not on the list of pre-qualified contractors announced in July.