Top contractors

Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007 | 7:27 a.m.

Eighty-six percent of the contracts awarded from January 1997 to May 2007 by the Clark County School District to build or replace schools went to five general contractors.

Company Contracts Sums

Pace Contracting 31 $522,645,766

Martin-Harris Construction 27 $434,270,881

CORE Construction 18 $364,377,607

Sletten Construction 8 $271,186,606

Roche Constructors 10 $142,691,850

Grove Inc. 2 $46,155,000

Fremont Construction 2 $40,701,792

Clark & Sullivan Constructors 2 $39,574,444

McCarthy Building Cos. 1 $36,430,000

Addison Construction 3 $28,519,450

Rafael Construction 1 $13,678,787

Korte-Bellew & Associates Construction 1 $7,167,629

R&O Construction 1 $6,957,317

Richardson Construction 1 $6,645,403

Carson Construction 1 $6,440,000

TOTAL 109 $1,967,442,532

A Sun analysis of 104 contracts awarded by the Clark County School District for new or replacement school construction from January 1997 to May 2007 found that, more often than not, the district overestimated what the winning bids would be.

Overestimated

Contracts: 57

Total: $67,268,225

Highlights: 17 awarded to Pace Contracting by a total of $22,144,237, 14 awarded to Martin-Harris Construction by a total of $14,053,429, and nine awarded to CORE Construction by a total of $13,359,502

Underestimated

Contracts: 47

Total: $46,556,885

Highlights: 14 awarded to Pace by a total of $14,679,124, nine awarded to CORE by a total of $13,449,850, and four awarded to Roche by a total of $9,399,002