Pompano Beach delays award for Southeast 6th Terrace bridge after lone $13.9M bid; residents press for faster timeline

City staff recommended rejecting a single construction bid for the Southeast 6th Terrace bridge replacement and re-soliciting the project in 2026, a move that sparked a heated debate among commissioners and residents on Oct. 28.

The city engineer, John Seropoulos, told the commission staff had received one bid at about $13.9 million, roughly double the project estimate, and the contractor's proposed construction schedule would not meet a hard deadline the city had requested. That deadline was intended to keep the project from overlapping with work on the McNabb Road bridge scheduled to begin in May 2026.

Seropoulos said the city had required substantial completion and re-opening to traffic before May 1, 2026, because both bridges cannot safely be taken out of service at the same time. Procurement staff had polled potential bidders before solicitation and were told the required accelerated schedule would limit competition; the bid results confirmed that concern.

"Had we gotten…