State 'tentatively' awards west Washington Bridge demolition contract. What to know.

More than six months after the abrupt closure of the failing westbound side of the Washington Bridge, the McKee administration has tentatively awarded a demolition contract to Aetna Bridge Company.

Details are emerging. But Friday was the deadline the administration gave itself to make a "tentative award" to one of the two firms that made it to the final round of bidding for the demolition piece of the $455 million tear down and replacement project: Aetna Bridge Co. and the Connecticut-based Manafort Brothers.

Aetna was not the lowest bidder, with a $45.8 million proposal compared to Manafort's $43.8 million. But it promised an earlier completion date - Jan. 29, 2025 - and a technical review team that included Transportation Director Peter Alviti gave it a higher score.

What about the forensic report?

The state's legal team has a "preliminary" analysis of what went wrong from Wiss, Janney, Elstner Assoc. Inc. (WJE), who are the consultants the state hired to perform a forensic investigation of how the bridge got to the point it required immediate - and permanent - closing on Dec. 11, 2023.

The state has not yet made any of the findings public. But Max Wistow, one of the lawyers the McKee Administration hired to explore the potential for financial recovery for the bridge's failure, told The Journal he anticipates completion of the report in "the near future."

"I'm hoping within a month," he said. "But that doesn't mean that that's going to be released to the public necessarily."

What is known:

Aetna was one of the long-time bridge contractors who received letters from the state's legal team in April that they may want to advise their insurance companies they might - stress on might - be defendants in a future suit to recover damages for the bridge failure.

Manafort sued the state in connection with an unrelated viaduct contract and won a $4 million settlement.

What happened on Friday?

The name of the tentatively selected vendor became public on the Ocean State Procures website, along with the Technical Evaluation Committee’s evaluation memorandum, reflecting the technical and cost proposals from the two competitors.

There's more: After the tentative award, "there are a series of administrative steps that the vendor must take prior to final award (meaning the issue of a purchase order and Notice to Proceed). Concurrently, DOT will seek any approvals needed through the Federal Highway Administration,"" according to Christina O'Reilly, a spokeswoman for the Department of Administration.

According to the evaluation memo:

• Aetna's "proposed project schedule is considered to be exceptional, with the substantial completion date being achieved on January 29, 2025, fifty days ahead'' of the date spelled out in the request for proposal (RFP).

• "Access to three distinct river access points and availability of a key crane necessary to complete their plan have already been secured, further reducing potential risks to the schedule. Each of these identified items demonstrate there is very little risk that this proposer would fail to meet to theirproposed schedule dates."

Aetna also got points for "innovation'' in its propose use of "demolition robots for confined spaces and winged trailers to contain active demolition debris, which have been utilized on previous projects."

By comparison, Manafort's timetable for completion was March 7, 2025, thirteen days ahead of the date provided in the RFP, but months behind Aetna and the review team questioned whether the firm could even meet that date.

Of note: Manafort's design-build team submitted a proposal that was previously rejected by DOT "due to structural stability concerns."

Aetna went into the competition with a team that included:

• Jacobs Engineering Group as lead designer

• J.R. Vinagro as the demolition subcontractor

• Siefert Associates for construction engineering

• Freeman Companies for traffic engineering

• Narragansett Engineering for surveying

• Oliveira Infrastructure LLC for highway design support

• Thielsch Engineering for construction quality control

• And the ubiquitous Advocacy Solutions for public outreach.

What can the state's lawyers say at this point?

Wistow told The Journal this week: The state has a "preliminary report" from WJE, but "it really is simply preliminary and it does not answer the questions who should definitely be held accountable and for what?"

"I'd rather not get into the details of it,'' he said, when pressed, stressing "it's preliminary and we continue to work with the expert to try to get to a final analysis and we're hopeful that we're going to do that within the very near future."

He described the analysis as: "The kind of report that a lawyer gets from their expert'' that says: "Here's what happened. Here's where the defendant, the person you're going to be suing, here's where they failed to meet the standard of care of a reasonably prudent [professional]. That's what we need and that's what we're trying to finalize."

"That's all I can really say with any confidence," he said. "We are going back over a substantial period of time with some very complex issues and we want to make sure we get this thing right."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Washington Bridge demolition contract award: What to know.