The Westbrook council delays choosing who will build the $7.6 million public services facility.

Construction on the city’s long-awaited public services and fleet maintenance building could be under way within a few weeks, pending a vote by the Westbrook City Council to approve Great Falls Construction as the winning bidder for the $7.6 million project.

City officials were hoping to award the construction bid sooner, but a competitive process has yielded questions from the remaining bidders over why they weren’t chosen. Questions about the decision prompted City Administrator Jerre Bryant to recommend that the City Council hold off on a vote, instead holding a workshop Monday to discuss the bidding process.

Great Falls Construction of Gorham, the Sheridan Corp. of Portland and Landry/French Construction of Scarborough were the three “pre-qualified” bidders for the large project. The goal is to create a consolidated public services and fleet maintenance building with a separate school transportation office.

The city’s facility on Saco Street is more than 50 years old, and has been retrofitted multiple times to be able to keep up with modern standards. City officials say the new building will allow the city to better care for its fleet of machinery and vehicles, which also includes the police and fire vehicles.

Bryant said Tuesday that although the project’s building committee officially recommended Great Falls Construction for the job, the bid award wasn’t added to this week’s agenda so that councilors could understand the bidding process and the recommendation.

“It’s a $7.5 million contract, which is significant,” he said.

“We started getting rumblings from

dissatisfied bidders, so I felt it was yet another reason to make sure the council was familiar with the process and had a good understanding before we award a bid for a project of that magnitude,” Bryant said.

Councilors John O’Hara and Paul Emery participated in the building committee, but the remaining councilors were not as familiar.

The delay will only set back the project by a few weeks. The council is scheduled to take up a first reading on the bid this Monday, Oct. 5. If approved, Bryant may ask the mayor to call a special meeting to hold a final reading prior to Columbus Day, allowing crews from Great Falls to get onsite as soon as possible.

Bryant said the team would like to pour the concrete foundation of the main building prior to cold weather setting in.

Because the project is using a “design-build” method, combined with a complicated site, Bryant said the bidding process was competitive. He said it allowed each construction team to be creative in how they would design the specific aspects the city wanted the project to include.

Bryant said Tuesday that it is not common to receive comments following a bid process, but understands that with such a project, bidders could compare their proposal with the others and argue their case. He did not disclose the specifics of the inquiries from the bidders.

“What you do is compare the total proposals to each other,” he said about the decision.

Both the interview team, made up of architects from Sebago Technics and SMRT, and the building committee voted unanimously in support of Great Falls.

Owens McCullough, a landscape architect with Sebago Technics, told the council Monday that while Great Falls’ $7.6 million bid wasn’t the low bid, the team was looking for the best overall proposal and value, which included aspects deemed important.

Some of these from Great Falls included a 24-foot eave height, radiant floor heat and recycling measures for both heat and water.

“We decided Great Falls offered the best value for the project,” McCullough said, adding that other bids did not include certain aspects, allowing the bid to come in lower.

On Monday, Director of Public Services Eric Dudley said he had “the highest comfort level” with the bid from Great Falls.

O’Hara said the project is one of the last big pieces for Westbrook’s municipal buildings.

“The community will get one hell of a bang for their buck,” he said, referring to the Great Falls proposal. “We have one shot to do this.”

Bryant said construction was originally scheduled to start Oct. 6. The project is expected to be completed by fall 2016.