SEATTLE – Two shipyards that want to build four 144-car vessels for Washington State Ferries have filed protests with the state Transportation Department, complaining that state officials are making it difficult for them to bid on the project.
Basically, Todd Pacific Shipyards Corp. and J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. say the state seeks to dictate the new ferries’ design – a violation of the statute governing the design-build partnership process – while assigning all risks to the bidder.
Both companies have been approved by the state to bid on the four-ferry contract.
State Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald said the shipyards were in on early discussions about the design-build contract provisions, and supported the increased risk assumption.
“Now, as we are going toward the design-build procurement, we’re hearing, ‘Gee, we’d like a little less risk,’” he said Friday.
“We can’t accept responsibility for a design we didn’t design,” Martinac lawyer Jed Powell said. “If the state’s going to design it, they’re going to own it – but the statute doesn’t allow for” state design of the vessels.
“The goal has somehow become making sure no claims are filed against the state,” Todd attorney Michael Marsh said. “It’s an unreasonable, overreaching, onerous contract and one we won’t sign off on.”
The protest letters were sent Oct. 2 by industry giant Todd, based in Seattle, and Martinac in Tacoma. Todd, founded in 1916, built the ferry system’s three new boats in the 1990s.
The Transportation Department “is a customer and we don’t want to bang on a customer,” Marsh said, but added that Todd had to object to some of the things in the state’s request for proposals.
MacDonald said he viewed the letters as requests to reopen “the highly technical issue of risk allocation. And our answer to that is yes, we can look at that again if you like.”
State officials responded Oct. 16, asking the two yards to comment on each other’s complaints by next Monday. David Humphreys, vessel project engineer for the ferry system, said the state was “carefully reviewing” the protests and would respond in writing by Nov. 7.
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