Star Tribune
Rochester firms face bidding, training roadblocks in construction jobs
ROCHESTER — Not enough construction firms owned by women, veterans and people of color are bidding on city and commercial projects here, and if local leaders want to change that, they should make the bidding process more friendly to contractors.
That’s the message consultants with St. Paul-based MaKee Co. gave to the Rochester City Council on Monday as part of a study on barriers that the city’s so-called disadvantaged business firms face in the community.
Consultants found the city is meeting most of its initial goals to have between 4% and 7% of construction contract costs go to those targeted businesses. Destination Medical Center-funded projects are doing well, but city commercial construction projects during the past two years have lagged: Only about 3.6% of total project costs from 2021 on have gone to disadvantaged businesses, less than the 7% city officials hoped for.
In total, the city has offered about $2.7 million in contracts to disadvantaged firms since November 2021.
“We can do more than this,” said Jorrie Johnson, a project manager for the city working on targeted businesses and workforce compliance.
MaKee Co. CEO R. Lynn Pingol said disadvantaged business contractors interviewed as part of the survey found the city’s bidding process was the biggest obstacle in securing contracts for highway work and other construction projects.
Most business owners said they were unfamiliar with how the city’s process works, though consultants noted that many of the surveyed disadvantaged owners lacked key elements to meet bid qualifications at times — industry-specific training, proper capital reserves or even financial reviews and specifics on overhead costs.
In addition, city officials and general contractors don’t have enough information on disadvantaged businesses in the area. Pingol pointed out that the city doesn’t have a centralized office for bids and lacks relationships with some of the firms who attended listening sessions or were surveyed by consultants, which only compounds issues.
“We have infrastructure dollars coming down the pipeline. We have all this money coming to the city of Rochester,” Pingol said. “We have got to make sure that we’re ready for that, and we need to be inclusive of small businesses.”
Aside from gathering more data on local disadvantaged businesses, Pingol recommended that city officials tweak their business outreach efforts to connect disadvantaged firms to more resources, offer better training to staff and businesses alike and potentially ease some qualifications to get more bids from smaller firms.
City leaders welcomed the feedback, appearing to support incorporating the recommendations into its current plans — such as a $1 million project funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies to boost women of color in construction jobs.
“This holistic approach makes so much sense,” City Council President Brooke Carlson said.
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