Department of Design and Construction Logo Image Credit: DDC
On July 13, 2022, the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) Commissioner Thomas Foley announced the creation of the City’s first Pre-Qualified List, strictly for Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises general contractors. The Pre-Qualified List was designed to provide Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises general contractors with first dibs over Department of Design and Construction projects between $500,000 and $2.99 million. In this way, construction contracts can be awarded faster and projects can be completed earlier without the need to run background checks or qualifications on all the bidders.
DDC Commissioner Thomas Foley stated, “Nurturing emerging firms and M/WBEs addresses historic inequities in the market, increases the number of companies that can bid on our projects and helps us to become more culturally competent as an agency.”
Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer expressed that the Pre-Qualified List directly delivers on a key initiative of Mayor Eric Adams’ Blueprint for Economic Development, which in part discusses the City’s plans on helping to nurture and procure big projects for Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises general contractors.
The Pre-Qualified List allows a company to be pre-screened to determine its project completion capabilities and its history of regulatory compliance. Upon passing review, qualified companies will be able to bid for certain exclusive Department of Design and Construction contracts.
The Pre-Qualified List will provide listed companies with projects involving building and upgrading municipal buildings including: interior renovations, HVAC and fire suppression system installations, façade and roof building, and installing any other building-wide system upgrades.
The Department of Design and Construction is one of the leading government agency’s to provide contracts to Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises. Below is a chart comparing the past two Fiscal Years relating to Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (M/WBE) contracts and utilization by the Department of Design and Construction:
2021 Fiscal Year – M/WBE Utilization: approximately 26 percent; Total Contracts: 334; Total Value of Contracts: $660 Million
2020 Fiscal Year – M/WBE Utilization: approximately 32 percent; Total Contracts: 440; Total Value of Contracts: $335 Million
While the data indicates a decrease in Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises utilization and total contracts between Fiscal Year 2020 and Fiscal Year 2021, there has been a significant increase in the total value of the contracts offered to Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises.
Currently, there are eleven listed companies in the Pre-Qualified List:
- Akela Contracting LLC
- DRL Services LLC
- Five Star Contracting Co., Inc.
- Gryphon Construction Inc.
- O. Technologies, Inc.
- Kunj Construction Corp.
- Metropolitan Construction Corp.
- Neelam Construction Corp.
- PMY Construction Corp.
- Sharan Builders Inc.
- Zaman Construction Corp.
To apply for the Pre-Qualified List, firms must meet the following requirements: (1) Three general construction projects between $1,500,000 and $3,000,000 must have been completed within the last five years with the firm holding a prime contractor or subcontractor position; (2) One project including interior renovation and mechanical, electrical, or plumbing system upgrades must have been completed; (3) Firms must have enough money to afford the construction projects offered through the Pre-Qualified List; (4) Firms must be a qualified joint venture or NYC-certified Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise.
The Department of Design and Construction’s M/WBE Program will be overseen by Executive Deputy Commissioner Magalie Austin.
Many initiatives were already taken by the Department of Design and Construction to help Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises including: a new mentoring program for M/WBEs as previously covered by CityLand, providing half of the new architectural design contracts under its Project Excellence Program in March to MWBEs as previously covered by CityLand, and having high rates of M/WBE participation in buildings built by the Department of Design and Construction during the COVID-19 pandemic including giving M/WBEs 46% of a $117 million budget for constructing three new COVID Centers of Excellence.
DDC Executive Deputy Commissioner Magalie D. Austin stated, “Diversity does not just happen, we have to design and implement initiatives such as this one to bring about equity and access to opportunity. This important step will help M/WBEs build capacity in the high-demand field of construction.”
For more information on becoming certified as an M/WBE, click here.
Applications for the Pre-Qualified List is done through NYC’s PASSport webpage. For any questions regarding PASSport, click here.
By: Malka Amar (Malka is a CityLaw intern and New York Law School student, Class of 2023.)
Department of Design and Construction: DDC Creates City Government’s First Exclusive List of Pre-Qualified M/WBE General Contractors (July 13, 2022).