The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) has stated that they will not be accepting any of the three bids that they had received last months to build the first nine rail stations, because all of them were more than $110 million more than what they had expected. Instead, HART has decided to break up the building of the first nine rail stations into three small bids of three stations each. This change may delay the opening of the initial 10-mile stretch between East Kapolei and Aloha Stadium, but Daniel Grabauskas, the Chief Executive Officer for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation felt that they could save $20 to $30 million by postponing the opening by a year, residents would be happy. Grabauskas believes that by breaking up the nine rail stations into three bids of three rail stations each, the total of the projects will come in at less than $294 million, which was the lowest bid previously submitted for the first nine rail stations. The agency had initially budgeted in $184 million for the first nine stations.
Daniel Grabauskas added, "We have decided that it is in the public's best interest to cancel this solicitation and redesign the bid in order to reduce risk to the contractors and thereby reduce costs. I would hope that they would see this as an opportunity to do the right thing and let us go forward with some changes that are going to drive down costs." The Honolulu Rail Project has a contingency fund of $550 million remaining, but this is expected to cover all unexpected costs.
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 9-10-2014, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Principal Broker, REALTOR®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
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