Commentary: Construction Onsite Insite August 23, 2002.

Byline: Dick Snow

Us against them

Border crossing is not necessarily new to general contracting. Certainly large, large projects are targets for nationally focused contractors.

However, in our wonderful world, Wisconsin contractors don't travel very far from home, particularly to another state. Bordering states, though, do offer incursion opportunities.

For example, Dubuque, Iowa, bid a riverfront education and conference center on Friday. The project consists of a three-story, 180,000-square-foot multipurpose facility, including an exhibit hall, meeting rooms, ballroom, river room, offices and a vestibule.

At this writing, we don't know the identity of the low bidder, but we do know J.P. Cullen & Sons, Janesville, Miron Construction, Neenah, and Kraemer Brothers, Plain, are in the running against eight Iowa general contractors. All three are tough competitors.

Cullen has crossed the Illinois border many times successfully, ditto Kraemer into Minnesota. If any of the three chance to submit the low bid, it'll be interesting to see how they handle the work.