Two Minnesota citizens – not the two losing bidders for the Interstate 35W bridge rebuild – have filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation demanding that it declare its design-build contract award to a consortium let by Longmont, Colo.-based Flatiron Constructors, Inc. "illegal" and "void" and asking for a "permanent injunction" against the reconstruction, slated to start later this month.
In the lawsuit filed Oct. 17 in the County of Ramsey District Court, Scott Sayer and Wendell Anthony Phillippi say that MnDOT "could have awarded the project to Flatiron much earlier than Oct. 8, disclosed the scoring data and proposals to the public, and waited to execute the contract" so as to "give the public time to review the proposals." They claim, for example, that Flatiron obtained "competitive advantages" by designing partly out of the designated right-of-way, while the losing teams stayed within the ROW. They also claim that the team's design does not have three webs for concrete box girder designs and criticize the selection for its "implications" of "eventual micro-cracking and natural porosity of concrete."
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In the lawsuit filed Oct. 17 in the County of Ramsey District Court, Scott Sayer and Wendell Anthony Phillippi say that MnDOT "could have awarded the project to Flatiron much earlier than Oct. 8, disclosed the scoring data and proposals to the public, and waited to execute the contract" so as to "give the public time to review the proposals." They claim, for example, that Flatiron obtained "competitive advantages" by designing partly out of the designated right-of-way, while the losing teams stayed within the ROW. They also claim that the team's design does not have three webs for concrete box girder designs and criticize the selection for its "implications" of "eventual micro-cracking and natural porosity of concrete."
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