As expected, two bids on the contract to build the deep-bore tunnel were submitted today to the Washington Department of Transportation before the 1:00 p.m. deadline. So what happens next? Tomorrow morning, WSDOT officials will announce whether the teams came in at or under the project's estimated $1.09 billion budget (the actual cost of the proposals are sealed—at this point, they simply come with a certification that says whether the bid is under or over budget). From there, three scenarios could occur:

If both teams are under budget, WSDOT will conduct a six-week evaluation of the proposals—comparing details like timelines and proposed traffic control plans—to come up with an overall score for the technical proposal. Then, "we open the price in mid-December and the prices are combined with the technical score to determine the best proposal value," explains Ron Paananen, a state program administrator with WSDOT. Paananen says that in this scenario, a superior technical proposal can trump a lower bidding price.

If only one team certifies that they're at or under budget, "we still have to review the proposals to see if they meet the terms of the contract," says Paananen, "but the process is much shorter because we aren't scoring the proposals against one-another." In other words, there's already a clear winner. WSDOT would then pay both teams—winners and losers alike—$4 million for submitting proposals (kind of like a "thanks for playing!" fee). That way, "we can incorporate [the loser's] ideas—which we now own—into the project of the winning team if we need to," Paananen says.

If both teams are over budget, "we return everything to the teams without opening the proposals or the prices," says Paananen. Then WSDOT enters into a process called Best and Final Offer (sounds like a spin-off of The Price is Right, doesn't it?). During this negotiation process, WSDOT's modifies their contract incrementally so that the two teams can re-submit within budget by the end of this year. Paananen says he can't speculate on what aspects of the contract would be modified, suffice it to say that "at every step along the way of this tunnel project we've done value engineering to make it more efficient and reduce risk," he says, so "it would be more of the same... just one more step in getting a successful contract in place. Ultimately, that’s our goal."

Stay tuned for tomorrow.