The Lawton Economic Development Authority awarded 10 more contracts Thursday totaling $11.2 million for the Firehawk Aerospace complex.<\/p>\n
Coupled with two other contracts previously awarded on the Firehawk project, at a combined cost of $7.67 million, along with $2.4 million in \u201cgeneral conditions\u201d and fees, LEDA has encumbered $21.3 million of the $22 million grant received from the Oklahoma Development Finance Authority.<\/p>\n
That leaves a balance of $668,776.<\/p>\n
However, \u201cI held back $500,000\u201d for reserves and \u201ccertain legal expenses,\u201d said Richard Rogalski, LEDA\u2019s executive director. \u201cWe can always put it back into the Firehawk project later, if we need to,\u201d he told Southwest Ledger.<\/p>\n
The proverbial \u201cbottom line\u201d is that LEDA has $168,776 in unspent, unencumbered funds from the $22 million ODFA grant. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s left on the table,\u201d Rogalski told the LEDA board Thursday. From this point onward, Firehawk will shoulder the costs, he reminded the board.<\/p>\n
Actually, \u201cWe have spent only about $1 million [of the grant] so far, but have awarded almost all of that $22 million,\u201d Rogalski added.<\/p>\n
The contracts awarded Thursday included bid packages for Buildings 4, 5 and 6, said Stephanie Bolton, a member of the Ryan construction management team with Ryan Herring Construction of Lawton, the \u201cconstruction manager at risk\u201d on the Firehawk project.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #3, building pad earthwork and concrete, was won by Structurcrete Inc. of Tulsa. Their base bid was $2,994,000 \u2013 which was $950,000 cheaper than the next-lowest bidder and a little over $2 million cheaper than the third-lowest bidder, City Manager John Ratliff noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called Structurcrete and verified their bid,\u201d Bolton said.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #4, structural steel, was awarded to HK&S. Their price was $707,850, which was more than half a million dollars cheaper than the other bid.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #5, for a pre-engineered metal building, was awarded to the sole bidder, Larrance Steel. Their bid was $468,986.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #6, general trades, was awarded to WW Builders. They bid $549,000, which was more than $300,000 less than the other bid.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #7, roofing and pre-finished panels, was won by Clayco Industries. At $887,000 they were the lower of two bidders.<\/p>\n
\u2022The contract on bid package #9, flooring, was awarded to Breegle, the lone bidder at $6,800.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #11, framing, insulation and sheetrock, was won by HutchCo Construction with a bid of $108,306, which was $29,000 lower than the other bid.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #12, fire pro-<\/p>\n
____________________ _______<\/p>\n
tection, was awarded to Marmic Fire and Safety. They bid $536,369, which was almost $338,000 cheaper than the other bid.<\/p>\n
\u2022Trade Mechanical was the sole bidder for bid package #13, plumbing. Their price was $786,000.<\/p>\n
\u2022Bid package #15, electrical and data communication, was won by Southern Plains. Their $4,174,580 base bid was almost $1.9 million cheaper than the other bid for the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the last big bid package,\u201d Rogalski said after the LEDA board vote.<\/p>\n
Three other bid packages, for painting, specialty flooring, and HVAC, will be awarded later by Firehawk.<\/p>\n
Bolton speculated that some bid packages attracted only one or two bidders because of \u201cthe accelerated schedule\u201d demanded by Firehawk.<\/p>\n
During its April 16 meeting, for example, LEDA awarded Iron Pipe a $4.388 million contract for demolition, site work and storm drainage on the 320-acre Firehawk site in northwest Lawton.<\/p>\n
The dirt work \u201chas to be done in 60 days so the concrete contractor can start,\u201d Ryan Herring said that day. Iron Pipe\u2019s employees are \u201cworking seven 12-hour days and have between 14 and 20 men on site,\u201d Herring added.<\/p>\n
Firehawk Aerospace produces hybrid rocket engine propellant. The Addison, Texas-based company, which began operations in 2019, utilizes 3D-printed solid rocket fuel for hybrid engines for various applications, including defense and commercial space exploration.<\/p>\n
Mike W. Ray is a fifth-generation, award-winning journalist who has more than 55 years\u2019 experience covering municipal, county, state and federal government in Oklahoma and Texas. He can be reached at mike.ray@swoknews. com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lawton Economic Development Authority awarded 10 more contracts Thursday totaling $11.2 million for the Firehawk Aerospace complex.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-356745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}