Tom_in_CA
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2013
- Messages
- 20,742
Hey gang : During decades of md'ing, I've had the good luck to stumble on to various oldtown demolition sites. Like noticing in a newspaper article where something is slated to be torn down. Or a city near me is slated to have all their downtown sidewalks replaced, etc...
Another way to find where tractors may be moving oldtown dirt, is to do google news key word searches. With word combinations like "historic + demolition" or "park + turf + replace", and so forth. And you can even restrict the hits to be only newspapers for your state. But this can be tedious. Since you get pages and pages of hits that mean nothing.
But in the last couple of years, I've been utilizing a superior way to keep abreast of all such projects slated to occur . First, a little background :
Whenever public money is spent (schools, parks, roads, sidewalks, govt. buildings, etc...), there is a requirement that it go out to open bid. To ensure no favoritism. Eg.: Unscrupulous bureaucrats who might steer jobs to their cousin or friend for kickbacks, etc.... And ensure competition of bidders, so as to theoretically get the best value for tax-payer dollars. In the old days (pre internet), this was accomplished via publication of "Request for proposals" in the classified sections of newspapers. You know .... those tteennssyy fine print legal section stuff in the back of newspapers that no one ever read.
But this was tedious, for construction companies to have to get multiple subscriptions to multiple papers from around their part of the state. And then tedious in that if you wanted to bid, you'd need to see the full plans/blueprints, which were available only by showing up at city or county hall in whatever location/jurisdiction that was in.
So general contractors pooled together, back in the 1950s, to create "co-ops" of sorts. Like farmer co-ops where all the various entities (city, county, state & fed) bids would all be in a single publication. And all the blueprints for these various projects would be housed under a single roof to physically go see the plans, get copies, etc...
Now, in the internet age, these builders exchanges can now do their work via 'puters and subscriptions. And what used to be county-by-county (or tri-county by tri-county) is now being consolidated into entire states. As these yesteryear builders exchanges merge into singular entities.
There's been a few "copycat" attempts by pop-up companies to attempt something nationwide. Don't subscribe to those. Instead: Find out who is the old-school ones that used to be brick & mortar, and are now subscription for their members. I've found that the new nationwide ones don't get all the projects for each locale. Vs the old-school companies that were just on perpetual retainer , with all the public works entities of their areas.
As an example, here the one for my area : http://www.ccbabuilds.com/
The annual subscription costs range from $100 to $500 ish. Depending on perks that you subscribe to get. Example, if you just want the bids for your tri-county area, versus if you want state wide, etc.... Or if you need multiple passwords (for multiple engineers) versus a single PW, etc...
Once you sign up, you can search their data bases with key word searches like "turf", or "demolish" or "demolition", or "sidewalk" or "bleachers", etc.... Our particular local builders exchange sends a daily email with any new projects that have come up for bid, state-wide, county-by-county. I just do "Ctrl F" (control find) and search the email for the various key words.
Occasionally you'll find a gem. Like some small burg within striking distance of you that is going to re-do their oldtown walks. Or a park that's slated to get artificial turf installed. Or tear down a historic section. Or re-do their bleachers at an old stadium that was planted on terra-firma, etc....
There's not many private sector job/bid listings on these, since those aren't required to have competitive bidding. But since parks and schools are public dollars, there tends to be every single park or school or sidewalk project on there (how convenient)
Naturally, this assumes that you're not timid about doing sidewalk demo's or old town demo's. That might (gasp) require you to step over yellow tape after 5pm. But assuming you're of that caliber: This can be a good way to stumble on to such projects.
Another way to find where tractors may be moving oldtown dirt, is to do google news key word searches. With word combinations like "historic + demolition" or "park + turf + replace", and so forth. And you can even restrict the hits to be only newspapers for your state. But this can be tedious. Since you get pages and pages of hits that mean nothing.
But in the last couple of years, I've been utilizing a superior way to keep abreast of all such projects slated to occur . First, a little background :
Whenever public money is spent (schools, parks, roads, sidewalks, govt. buildings, etc...), there is a requirement that it go out to open bid. To ensure no favoritism. Eg.: Unscrupulous bureaucrats who might steer jobs to their cousin or friend for kickbacks, etc.... And ensure competition of bidders, so as to theoretically get the best value for tax-payer dollars. In the old days (pre internet), this was accomplished via publication of "Request for proposals" in the classified sections of newspapers. You know .... those tteennssyy fine print legal section stuff in the back of newspapers that no one ever read.
But this was tedious, for construction companies to have to get multiple subscriptions to multiple papers from around their part of the state. And then tedious in that if you wanted to bid, you'd need to see the full plans/blueprints, which were available only by showing up at city or county hall in whatever location/jurisdiction that was in.
So general contractors pooled together, back in the 1950s, to create "co-ops" of sorts. Like farmer co-ops where all the various entities (city, county, state & fed) bids would all be in a single publication. And all the blueprints for these various projects would be housed under a single roof to physically go see the plans, get copies, etc...
Now, in the internet age, these builders exchanges can now do their work via 'puters and subscriptions. And what used to be county-by-county (or tri-county by tri-county) is now being consolidated into entire states. As these yesteryear builders exchanges merge into singular entities.
There's been a few "copycat" attempts by pop-up companies to attempt something nationwide. Don't subscribe to those. Instead: Find out who is the old-school ones that used to be brick & mortar, and are now subscription for their members. I've found that the new nationwide ones don't get all the projects for each locale. Vs the old-school companies that were just on perpetual retainer , with all the public works entities of their areas.
As an example, here the one for my area : http://www.ccbabuilds.com/
The annual subscription costs range from $100 to $500 ish. Depending on perks that you subscribe to get. Example, if you just want the bids for your tri-county area, versus if you want state wide, etc.... Or if you need multiple passwords (for multiple engineers) versus a single PW, etc...
Once you sign up, you can search their data bases with key word searches like "turf", or "demolish" or "demolition", or "sidewalk" or "bleachers", etc.... Our particular local builders exchange sends a daily email with any new projects that have come up for bid, state-wide, county-by-county. I just do "Ctrl F" (control find) and search the email for the various key words.
Occasionally you'll find a gem. Like some small burg within striking distance of you that is going to re-do their oldtown walks. Or a park that's slated to get artificial turf installed. Or tear down a historic section. Or re-do their bleachers at an old stadium that was planted on terra-firma, etc....
There's not many private sector job/bid listings on these, since those aren't required to have competitive bidding. But since parks and schools are public dollars, there tends to be every single park or school or sidewalk project on there (how convenient)
Naturally, this assumes that you're not timid about doing sidewalk demo's or old town demo's. That might (gasp) require you to step over yellow tape after 5pm. But assuming you're of that caliber: This can be a good way to stumble on to such projects.