Public works become 'only game in town' for construction trades.

With most private-sector commercial projects stalled because of depressed market conditions, public works will provide L.A. County's most-prized construction contracts in the next year, said industry observers.

Railways, hospitals, courthouses, waste water treatment plants, and other public-sector jobs are really the "only game in town," reported Larry Kendrick, a reporter with F.W. Dodge, a division of McGraw-Hill Inc. that publishes information on construction projects.

"There are a lot of (private-sector) commercial projects in the pipeline, but it's questionable whether they'll go through," said Kendrick.

Some of the largest private-sector jobs looming on the horizon are coming out of the Walt Disney Co., such as the expansion of its Burbank studios and the building of its second theme park in Anaheim, which includes massive parking structures and a hotel district.

The problem with getting news about Disney's projects, however, is that the company keeps its expansion plans closely guarded so as not to tip off the competition, said Kendrick. Another complication is that Disney relies on a select list of prequalified bidders.

For now, he said, "public works is where all the money is."

Even the minuscule amount of private-sector work going on today typically involves a public-sector link. Indeed, one of the hottest new trends in the construction industry is the increasing frequency of public-private joint ventures, Kendrick said.

"The public sector has huge amounts of land, but it's low on funds," he pointed out.

By far, the biggest source of future construction contracts is the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said industry observers.

The newly formed mega-agency, which combines the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District, is referred to as the "$200 billion gorilla." That's a reference to the combined value of contracts MTA is slated to award over the next 30 years.

"We're the biggest civil works project in North America," boasts Carey Peck, MTA's supervisor of vendor relations and the son of actor Gregory Peck. "The only thing that comes close to us is the rebuilding of Kuwait."

Currently, the biggest MTA construction contract going out to bid is the Blue Line (light rail) extension from downtown L.A. to Pasadena, said Will Sanchez, director of contracts for the Rail Construction Corp., the design-and-construction arm of MTA's rail division.

By fall, the agency will be putting seven to eight contracts out to bid for construction of 14 rail stations, and various rail line segments and bridges for the 12-mile downtown-to-Pasadena route.

The combined value of those contracts, he said, will be over $100 million.

Another big MTA contract slated to be put out to bid soon is for tunneling work on the third leg of the Metro Red Line subway. That subway, when completed, will run from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to Universal City.

Jean Kinsel, manager of contracts for the Rail Construction Corp., said the tunneling work going out to bid is for a section of the line running from North Hollywood to Universal City. The value of that contract will be in excess of $50 million, she said, and requests for bids are going out this month.

The agency also will be doling out dozens of smaller contracts, pointed out Sanchez. For instance, on the second and third legs of Metro Red Line, the agency is soliciting bids for emergency systems, signs and graphics, and installation of elevators and escalators.

By next year, the agency will be awarding contracts for finishing work, such as tiling and lighting.

Indeed, the list of contracts scheduled to be awarded by the transit agency goes on and on, something akin to the network of proposed railways it is supposed to get built.

At least a dozen contracts valued at between $1 million and $10 million are pending for work on Metrolink, the newly launched commuter train system that runs on pre-existing rail lines, according to a MTA press release.

To keep companies apprised of upcoming contracts, Peck said, MTA's vendor relations department publishes a free monthly newsletter. The publication offers detailed information, such as: the name of the contract administrator; the dates, times and locations of pre-bid meetings; how to get certified and a list of contracts scheduled to be put up for bid in the next six months.

Peck said the MTA currently has 8,000 vendors in its database and will send out free specialized information about specific contracts, based on a vendor's interest. For instance, the MTA's vendor relations department would send an elevator vendor free information on all buildings at least three stories tall.

For contractors looking for minority- and women-owned subcontractors to fulfill special requirements on a contract, Peck said, the MTA will perform a specialized search, at no charge, among the 400,000 companies on its database. Most of the names on the database are minority and women-owned businesses in Southern California, Peck pointed out.

Such a "special requirement" was imposed on three demolition contracts that have already been awarded for the start of the third leg of the Metro Red Line. That special requirement mandated that at least 50 percent of the work performed under those contracts to be done by minority- or women-owned companies, said Peck.

The MTA's vendor relations department did a search and came up with 300 minority- or women-owned firms.

Other public works projects looming on the horizon include various hospital upgrades, most of which were approved by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors last October. Those upgrades are part of a proposed $1.8 billion overhaul of L.A. County's dilapidated health care system.

Each of the county's six hospitals are scheduled for construction projects.

The massive contracts related to replacing the L.A. County USC Medical Center -- the nation's largest hospital -- however, won't start going out until the end of 1994, said Jim Abbott, general manager of construction and real property for the county's Internal Services Department.

Abbott said the most immediate hospital contract is for building a trauma center at the Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center in Watts. That contract, valued at over $30 million, will go out to bid in March, he said.

Of the nine contracts to be awarded for the upgrade of the Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, Abbott said, three contracts have already been put out to bid and three other major contracts will be put out to bid in the next year.

Contracts for new courthouses in Torrance and Hollywood will also go out next year, he said.

By law, all public construction projects must be advertised in the newspaper. By comparison, private companies, like Disney, often restrict bidders to a select few. Most private hospitals also keep expansion plans closely guarded, said Kendrick of F.W. Dodge.

Several local contractors said their main sources of information about upcoming construction contracts are personal referrals and construction industry news services, such as F.W. Dodge, which have vast databases on all public and private projects.