Link: Firms get look at Gold Line possibilities - Pasadena Star-News
Firms get look at Gold Line possibilities
By Ryan Carter, Staff Writer
Posted: 09/15/2009 08:36:39 PM PDT
MONROVIA - About 150 small business owners filled a room at the Doubletree Hotel Monrovia Tuesday to learn about how they could get a piece of a possible $735 million pie.
The pie is the Foothill Gold Line Extension project - a proposed rail line that would extend the light rail system from Pasadena to Montclair.
In January, the Metro Gold Line Construction Authority Board will issue a request for proposals from local companies vying for a contract to design and build a bridge over the Foothill (210) Freeway as part of the 24-mile project. And in June of next year, the agency will begin accepting bids for a builder of the rest of the project - aligning rail tracks along the system to Azusa, crossings, stations and maintenance facilities.
Tuesday's event was the first of its kind to bring together smaller firms interested in subcontracting with whatever large business gets the main design/build contract. Those contracts will be awarded in May and November of next year.
Transit officials wanted feedback - and they got it - from a host of small construction and engineering firms. One business representative, who declined to give her name, was concerned about the time it takes for transit agencies to pay for services contracted for.
"How do you ensure (as a small business) that you really get paid?" she asked officials, including Habib F. Balian, CEO of the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Authority, the agency tasked with
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overseeing the design and construction.
Long delays with transit agencies in the past have jeopardized her business, she said.
"This is really hard for us small businesses," she said. "We can't take the hit that a multi-billion dollar business can."
Authority officials assured her that in this case, payment would come much sooner, given obligations of the design/builder to pay subcontractors.
That pay would ultimately come from voter-approved Measure R funds, which targeted 35 percent of the new half-cent sales tax to planning for L.A. County rail lines.
Bouncing off of the success of the 13.7-mile line from Los Angeles to east Pasadena, which was completed in 2003, construction authority officials are pushing for Metro's go-ahead of two more phases - from Pasadena to Azusa, and from Azusa to Montclair.
Among the selling points is the potential for $40 billion in economic benefits from jobs to transit-oriented developments, according to authority officials.
But funding - or the lack of it - has held up the project, which officials say is shovel-ready to begin in June.
Metro could approve a long-range transportation plan, which could include allocating at least $735 million to build the 24-mile line by 2017.
But even as Balian pushes for money now, officials told small business on Tuesday that the authority is creating a public-private partnership with hopes of speeding up construction ahead of funding.
While the project got no federal stimulus funding, it's go-ahead could end up being a huge stimulus for the area, Balian said. And that's what firms are waiting to tap into, he said.
"There's about 150 or so businesses who want Measure R transportation dollars being spent for transportation....This project is ready," he said.
Another workshop will begin at 8 a.m. Sept. 29 at Doubletree Hotel Monrovia, 924 W. Huntington Drive. For more information, go to www.foothillextension.org or call (626) 471-9050.
ryan.carter@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, ext. 2720
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