Back to the drawing board: Public works to reset bidding for long-stalled Guam school reconstruction

By Ron Rocky Coloma

The Department of Public Works is now preparing to reissue a solicitation for

 the construction of a Simon Sanchez High School campus, following the cancellation of the previous procurement, which was marred by repeated protests.

DPW rejected all proposals after denying three procurement protests filed by General Pacific Services Inc. The agency concluded that proceeding with the existing request for proposals could lead to litigation and further delay the construction of a permanent campus.

The decision effectively resets a procurement that had advanced through evaluation and into negotiations with Core Tech International Inc., the highest-ranked proposer. No final contract between Core Tech and the government was executed.

The move adds another chapter to the yearslong effort to replace Simon Sanchez High School, whose students and employees have been displaced due to problems at the aging Yigo campus.

DPW said the procurement had been placed in an indefinite stay because of unresolved protests. Although the agency ultimately denied all three protests, it determined that continuing the existing procurement could expose the project to prolonged litigation.

Vincent Arriola

"We will not allow GPS to hold Simon Sanchez students hostage to years of needless litigation," DPW Director Vincent P. Arriola said. "DPW followed the law, the evaluation process was sound, and all three protests were denied. But the students cannot continue waiting while one unsuccessful proposer attempts to secure an award it did not receive."

Arriola said canceling and restarting the procurement would allow the government to pursue the project without having to continue defending the existing process.

The Simon Sanchez project is authorized under the Ma Kåhat Act of 2013, which governs the financing and delivery of the replacement school. The procurement includes financing, demolition, design, construction, lease-leaseback, insurance and capital maintenance.

General Pacific Services filed its first protest Nov. 19, 2025, alleging DPW failed to maintain a complete procurement record. GPS filed two more protests Dec. 12, one concerning demolition-related work and another challenging the responsiveness of a competing proposal.

In denying the first protest, DPW determined that GPS had been given opportunities to inspect the procurement record and had not identified any specific missing document that would constitute a violation of the law.

DPW also threw out the second protest, dismissing GPS' claim that the department improperly initiated a separate demolition procurement outside the original RFP.

DPW said demolition, site clearing and preconstruction work were already included in the original Simon Sanchez solicitation, while the $16.3 million Limited Project Scope Agreement covered permit-set design, mobilization, demolition and clearing work.

The agency said the agreement represented a phased implementation of work that had already been competitively procured rather than a separate procurement.

The third dismissed protest concerned Core Tech's proposal and the procurement pricing process.

DPW said Core Tech was ranked as the highest-qualified proposer and only Core Tech's sealed pricing was opened for negotiations, as required under the RFP. According to the agency, price was not included among the criteria used to rank the proposals.

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The agency said negotiations with Core Tech took place from July through September 2025. A conditional acceptance executed Sept. 22, 2025, reflected Core Tech's agreement to comply with the Ma Kåhat Act's statutory financing ceiling of $166,365,000.

DPW said no final price was agreed upon and no contract was executed.

"Because the government's negotiations have become public and due to the cloud over this procurement created by these protests, any attempt to move this procurement forward will result in litigation, which will only further delay construction of SSHS," the agency said in its final decision.

The agency also cited concerns about requirements in the Ma Kåhat Act, saying its provisions restrict the government's ability to formulate contract terms that account for the school's current and future needs.

DPW said some considerations reflected in the law have become outdated since its enactment more than a decade ago and could affect the government's ability to structure the project cost-effectively.

"This cancellation is not an admission that the procurement was flawed, quite the opposite," Arriola said.

"It is a decision to protect the students from the much greater risk of having this project tied up in court for years. Our responsibility is to deliver a new school, not to defend an otherwise sound procurement indefinitely so a disgruntled bidder can capitalize the archaic automatic stay provision in our procurement law."

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