MassDOT will begin over with ‘clean slate’ on the service plaza course of

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After their authentic bidder backed out amid battle of curiosity allegations, MassDOT is beginning the proposal course of for his or her freeway service plazas over from the start.

“It’s a clean slate,” MassDOT Freeway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver advised the Herald on Wednesday. “We’re really going to take the time to get it right.”

The request for proposal redux comes following a months-long saga of courtroom battles and media protection of what would possibly usually be a bland and routine contract bidding course of. Earlier than all of the drama, the story was no extra sophisticated than the truth that MassDOT wanted a brand new operator to handle its 18 freeway service plazas.

Their authentic bidding course of led them to choose Dublin-based Applegreen for a 35-year lease. Nevertheless, Applegreen backed out after successful the bid, citing an incapacity to reach at “definitive terms for the redevelopment of 18 motorway service areas in Massachusetts.”

Their sudden choice to step away adopted months of allegations from the shedding bidder, Waltham-based International Companions, that MassDOT’s choice board chairman had been speaking with Applegreen’s representatives and enterprise companions. Based on International, that alone ought to have led to the Irish firm’s removing from rivalry.

Gulliver advised the Herald that the earlier bidding course of had been routed by the division’s actual property staff. The brand new course of will undergo MassDOT’s complicated initiatives workplace, he stated, which is extra used to dealing with large-scale initiatives.

The freeway administrator had no new RFP schedule to supply, apart from that the method will doubtless take the division nicely into the New 12 months.

“The timeline is still uncertain,” he stated.

The “very first thing” that MassDOT will do, Gulliver stated, is “really take a beat. Look at where we think we can improve procurement.” He stated the division will doubtless “take a few weeks, maybe a couple of months” to get their bearings once more.

“We’re going to work to make it a better procurement, make it more more competitive, and really focus on getting that best value for both taxpayers and the commuters that are going to be using these things on a regular basis,” he stated.

The present plaza operators have been as a consequence of see their contracts expire on January 1. Gulliver stated they’ll see their agreements prolonged and that MassDOT could be reaching out to debate the phrases of these extensions this week.

Within the meantime, he stated, the division will likely be casting a wider web than that they had beforehand.

“We’re going to look at the lessons learned that we had as we were starting implementation, but also we want to do some market sounding. We want to talk to the original six bidders, find out from the four who ultimately did not submit and weren’t the finalists, what about it did they see that caused them to withdraw,” he stated.

Eric Slifka, the president and CEO of International Companions, maybe conscious of the approaching announcement, addressed the MassDOT board of administrators throughout their common assembly on Wednesday simply earlier than they revealed their plan to start out the bidding over.

Based on Slifka, the previous 5 months have been “unusual” for his firm, which doesn’t often discover itself within the headlines.

“But as a fourth generation Massachusetts company, we found it necessary to speak up when we saw that the Commonwealth wasn’t getting the best value. It wasn’t about politics or publicity, it was about doing what’s right for Massachusetts taxpayers and the long-term prosperity of the state we’ve fueled for nearly a century,” he stated.

Now that Applegreen has withdrawn their bid, Slifka stated, the state can transfer ahead “with clarity and confidence.”

“And global is ready to deliver,” he advised the board.

Gulliver stated that MassDOT thought of each beginning the method over and accepting the bid beforehand supplied by International Companions. Ultimately, he stated though both course would have been authorized, the division determined to start once more.

“We really did consider all of our options here,” he stated.

“We really felt this was the best one — the best way to get more competition, the best way to get more innovation and really give everybody the product that they are looking for,” he stated.

This can be a growing story.

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