FROED One Government Center Fall River, MA 02722-7700 Tel 508-324-2620 Fax 508-677-2840 info@froed.org		ROAD TO BIOPARK IS PAVED WITH CASH Freetown firm wins contract to expand Riggenbach Road The Herald News, Friday, October 16, 2009 - Page B1 FALL RIVER - The Redevelopment Authority awarded a $588,000 contract Wednesday to expand a road that will lead to the proposed Southcoast BioPark. The winning bid, from JRD Inc. of Freetown, beat the next-lowest bidder by about $100,000. Seven firms bid on the work, with proposals ranging up to $892,000. The project will improve roughly 1,000 feet of Riggenbach Road, widening widen roadways and installing drainage, utilities, curbing and guardrails from Airport Road to an eastern link into the 300-acre BioPark, said Redevelopment Authority staffer Kenneth Fiola Jr. Fiola’s Fall River Office of Economic Development opened the bids Sept. 28, following a pre-bid conference to discuss the contract a week earlier. The bid contract calls for substantial completion of the work within 60 days. The six other bidders, all from Massachusetts, were: LAL Construction, Fall River, $702,038; ET&L Corp., Stowe, $739,000; Pavao Construction Co., Dighton, $745,000; I.W. Harding Co., West Bridgewater, $801,411; Aqualine Utility Inc., East Bridgewater, $840,967, and Wes Construction Corp., Halifax, $892,000. Bidders needed prequalification from the Massachusetts Highway Department. The state’s $2 million in grants awarded for road construction will pay for this part of the project, leaving roughly $1.4 to $1.5 million to extend water and sewer lines into the park, Fiola told the Redevelopment Authority. The infrastructure work will require an estimated $2.2 million more in state funds to complete the extension to a new Executive Park Drive. That would enable access to the BioPark’s first project, building the pilot University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Biomanufacturing Center. There are only four others in the world. The state’s commitment includes $15 million for design and construction of the 21,000-square-foot facility. The project timetable calls for the design to be complete by year's end, followed by groundbreaking next spring and two years of construction. The BioPark plan calls for 3 million square feet of space, half of which would be a corporate campus, 10 three- and four-story office buildings and a parking garage. Estimates suggest the park would create 8,000 jobs. Back