(Riverton, WY)—The Riverton Medical District (RMD) held its bid opening for construction on Thursday afternoon at the Holiday Inn. They received three bids altogether. Two bidders submitted similar bids, but a third was significantly lower.
RMD Board Chair Corte McGuffey thanked all the contractors for putting in the time to bid on the project.
“We know how much time is spent on putting these together,” McGuffey said of the bids. “Really thank you guys for all your hard work putting these numbers together. We know that there’s a lot of time and investment and money that goes into putting this together. So we really appreciate your hard work and your interest in our project. It’s something we’re really excited about. It’s a great day for us to see the number. We’ve been working so hard for five years now trying to get this project off the ground with the support from our community.”
Before opening the three bids, Mitch Goplen, Billings Clinic Vice President of Facility Services, shared that it would take a few days to review each bid and work with the USDA to ensure all the pieces are in them.
“We’re going to make it our top priority tomorrow and next week. We’ll get back to you and the main reason for that is we know that you guys want to lock in other work if you’re not selected. We want to be very sensitive to that.”
Going in alphabetical order, McGuffey opened each bid one by one. They then read off the numbers so the people in attendance and online could hear the bid.
BHI of Rock Springs submitted a bid of $46.8M, and Cody’s Groathouse submitted a bid of $46.2M. The outlier was U.S. Custom Builders of St. George, UT, which submitted the lowest bid of $28.1M.
According to County 10’s last update from RMD a year ago, $54M had been raised for the new hospital between a grant from the State of Wyoming, the USDA Rural Development loan, funding from the half-percent sales tax, and community member donations.
County 10 will share the latest on the bid process once more information is available next week.
To view all of County 10’s coverage of the Riverton Medical District, click here.