Wednesday, March 26, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
When a builder submits a bid that is nearly half that of his nearest competitor to renovate what is arguably the city's most dilapidated housing project, concerns are going to be raised.
The Las Vegas Housing Authority at a public meeting Tuesday grilled Las Vegas builder Ernesto Savino of City Plan Development Inc., and insisted that he complete the work on Marble Manor for his $330,300 low bid.
The board then voted 3-0 to approve the bid, with Chairman Elgin Simpson and members Otto Merida and Dewain Steadman voting yes. Board members Juan Garcia and Niecy Harris were absent.
But before voting on the motion, Simpson issued a stern warning to Savino: "If this is approved, don't come back (asking for more money). This will complete the project."
Steadman noted: "This has gone on for quite awhile."
The project has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funds and is said to be responsible for bankrupting the construction firm that won the original bid.
Prior to the vote, Merida asked Savino if he was satisfied with the "level of security" of his bid, which was $289,700 less than the only other bid for the job, submitted by Richardson Construction Inc.
Savino said with the quick response of city building inspectors and housing authority officials, he would be able to complete the job for the bid amount in two months at the rate of six units per week.
Merida posed a similar question to Rory Lorenzo, housing authority development and modernization director, who scrutinized the bids for the long-delayed completion of the units at Gerson Avenue and H Street.
"Are you satisfied -- we don't want you to come back with a request for another $800,000," Merida said.
Lorenzo told the board the reason Richardson's bid was so much higher was because that firm offered to do a lot more to the exterior of the buildings and the 2,000-square-foot community center "which drove costs up."
Richardson Construction rebuilt the roads and sidewalks within Marble Manor.
The block-walled duplexes built in the 1950s fell into irreparable decay in the early 1990s due in part to a long history of abuse by tenants and failure by the housing authority to make timely repairs.
In 1995, a $3.7 million renovation project was approved for the 255-unit complex. The first phase involved rebuilding 100 units with money from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The contract was awarded to Nuclear Construction, which rebuilt 65 units and was in the process of working on the other 35 when it went into default last summer, Lorenzo said.
"Some of the units are very close to being completed," Lorenzo said before Tuesday's meeting. "The worst cases are at least 50 percent done with the plumbing and electric completed. They are in need of carpentry, windows, floor tiles and cabinets."
Lorenzo said low-income tenants have been moved into the completed portion of Marble Manor's phase one.
After the meeting, a confident Savino said the reason the bids appeared so wide-ranging was "because there is just two of them. If there had been three or four, I believe the others would have been closer to mine."
This is not Savino's first government contract. He did the addition to a housing authority warehouse and renovated some of the agency's offices. His three-year-old company also did renovations to the sixth floor at City Hall.
"My background is in construction management and engineering, so I personally do the estimates and crunch the numbers," Savino said. "And I also do the physical work."
Savino said he expects to have his crews working at the site by the first week in April.
The Marble Manor renovation had been heralded as the beginning of a new era for the housing authority. LVHA Executive Director Frederick Brown said in a 1995 SUN story that it would help "create neighborhoods instead of public housing sites."
The completed units were gutted from the inside out. Kitchen cupboards, sinks, toilets, carpet, drywall, plumbing, electrical wiring and windows were replaced. Swamp coolers were replaced with air-conditioning units.
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