The Providence Redevelopment Agency has been authorized to pay extra storage fees for the bridge, leading to questions about the agency’s procurement policies

As part of a swath of improvements coming to the Woonasquatucket River Greenway, the City is planning to install a pedestrian bridge near Sims Avenue to allow walkers and cyclists to more easily traverse the river. 

The bridge could be a game changer for busy weekends at Farm Fresh, when people may need to park on the other side of the river, and will hopefully allow for greater connectivity in the area. The bridge would connect Farm Fresh to the Waterfire Arts Center parking lot.

Approvals for the project were granted in 2022, while Mayor Jorge Elorza was still in office. The bid went to contract, and the bridge was prefabricated by Contech Engineered Solutions. The project had an initial (ambitious) completion date in mid-spring of 2023.

So now, two years since that deadline has come and gone, where’s the bridge?

The completed bridge has been stuck in a facility in Virginia due to an error made by the project manager, according to the Providence Redevelopment Agency (PRA). The design of the bridge did not account for an underground utility line that would have been disrupted by the bridge as it was planned.

Micropilings for the bridge “would have interfered with an underground utility line,” said Nicholas Cicchitelli, PRA secretary and director of real estate for the city, at the PRA’s meeting on May 20. This created “the necessity of redesigning that and putting the project on hold for eight months and counting.”

The bridge fabricator is charging a storage fee for the additional time they have had to house the pedestrian bridge, clocking in at $4,500 a month. The contractor also had to move the bridge around their yard a few times, Director of Planning and Development and PRA Executive Director Joe Mulligan said, generating additional costs.

The bridge has already been in storage for four months, but the PRA board was asked to authorize spending up to $45,000 in case the contractor requires payment of this storage fee before the bridge can be delivered (or settlements with other parties can be made).

“Staff has no intention, in the perfect world, of repaying a dime for this, especially not anything that may not be recoverable from the errors of omissions insurance claim case,” Cicchitelli said, explaining a settlement could occur in the future.

The Narragansett Bay Commission has jurisdiction for this utility line as well, so that agency also has to approve the drawings and design of new pilings. Once those pilings are approved and constructed, the bridge can make the trek north to finally be installed.

The Agency’s Procurement Policies

The bridge fabricator is a direct vendor with the PRA on this project. Cicchitelli explained that since the PRA does not have to conform to the same purchasing and procurement policies as the City, it makes most sense for the Agency to prepare to make this payment if necessary.

“The Board of Contract and Supply presides over all purchasing and procurement over $20,000 (for construction projects) and over $10,000 (for all other purchases of materials, supplies, services, equipment, and all other necessary categories of procurement for the City of Providence),” according to the City’s website.

But as the PRA has updated its bylaws and statutes, staff learned that the “agency is not required by statute to follow the city procurement effort,” Cicchitelli said. “It does so as a matter of good practice.” The agency can make this payment (presumably more simply than the City could) with PRA board approval in case the contractor refuses to deliver the bridge until the storage fee is paid.

“It was our agreement that we will mirror the City’s procurement policies and procedures, yet there will be occasions where we reserve the right to deviate for a direct procurement, some other type of procurement if it is supported by the bylaws and governance rights…that we’ve just updated and reviewed as an authority, there may be special conditions in which it’s prudent for the authority to do a direct procurement not through the Board of Contract and Supply,” Mulligan said.

Mulligan clarified that the agency would be paying a lump sum for a fabrication and delivery agreement, which was approved in 2022. This new approval would be to cover the storage fees.

Manuel Cordero, former PRA chair and current member, asked whether the Board of Contract and Supply had requested the PRA to standardize their procurement procedures, which Mulligan said was not the case. The procedures could remain as they had, with the PRA most often deferring to the usual City processes. “It’s an agreement between colleagues,” Mulligan said.

Similar questions about policy and procedure had been raised earlier in the meeting regarding an increased bill for a law firm that was working with the PRA to update its statutes. PRA members had questions about the increase and asked to see further accounting of the process in order to understand the difference between requests that required board approval versus what could be handled on the staff level.

“How do we both ensure that in the future we’re making smooth transitions but also that any of the best practices that we developed are communicated in some way,” Cordero said about the procurement policies. “I don’t know if it requires formalizing or even acting on, but I do think that this is an area that this agency has seen challenges in before.”

“I don’t think it’s ever been anything too problematic, but you can imagine where the kind of freedom that we have, and that’s a kind of independence — which is a good thing — [but] can also be abused under certain circumstances,” he continued. “It’s certainly nothing that we have to worry about right now, but as we think about the legacy of the work that we’re doing and future generations of folks that are serving, I just want to make sure that we’re preparing ourselves.”

Samuel Bradner, PRA Chair, concurred that some of these best practices ought to be written down. “I don’t want to turn this into a two-hour policy discussion, but we might need a work session on… where the line is between board responsibilities and staff ability to execute,” he said.

The board resolve to hold a work session and get some of these best practices written down.

By Katy Pickens / Planning & Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org