Evansville will rebid sidewalks after Crown Construction fails to provide required bonds

Town engineer Shay Porter told the Evansville Town Council on May 27 that Crown Construction, which had received a notice of award for a sidewalks project on April 14, cannot provide the required performance and payment bonds.

"We got notified as on Friday that Crown Construction is not going to be able to provide the performance of payment bonds for this contract," Porter said, and recommended a motion "to annul the notice of award to Crown Construction and to notify Crown Construction of their forfeiture of their bid bond, which will be considered liquidated damages in the amount of 5% of their total bid." Porter said the performance bond guaranteed the work would be completed and the payment bond guaranteed payment to subcontractors.

Porter told the council the town has limited options when a contractor cannot provide required bonds: the town can declare the bidder in default, collect on the bid bond to cover damages and rebid the project. He said the town had already set an advertisement to rebid and expected a roughly six-week delay because of the rebid process.

A motion to annul the notice of award to Crown Construction and forfeit the bid bond was made, seconded and approved by the council. During the public comment period, resident Fred Roi asked whether Crown would be precluded from bidding on the project when rebid. Porter answered that the town could not necessarily preclude Crown from bidding again; if Crown bid and could provide bonding it could be eligible, and if it bid again without bonding the town would again collect the bid bond.

The transcript supplied the original contract price associated with the project as $715,955 and states the town would collect the bidder’s 5% bond as liquidated damages; the transcript’s exact listed forfeiture figure contains a formatting error and should be verified against official procurement records.