By Mark Gutglueck
Next Tuesday, July 15, the Ontario City Council is scheduled to consider and vote on a $28,306,155 change order to the $24.9 million construction contract the city has already entered into with Newport Beach-based McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. for the Vineyard Parking Structure.
The proposed change order increases the total contract amount to $53.3 million – representing a 213% increase over the original contract.
According to the city, in December 2025, city officials solicited pre-qualification proposals from six companies for the design and construction of the parking structure, which is part of the city’s sports complex, referred to by the city as the Ontario Sports Empire, which is to entail multiple sports fields, including soccer, softball and baseball fields and minor league baseball stadium. Those six companies deemed qualified to perform the work based on previous experience and believed to be potentially interested in taking on the job were McCarthy as well as Bomel Construction, Clark Pacific, Hensel Phelps, Largo Concrete, Inc. and Swinerton Builders.
Four of those solicited responded with proposals to design and construct the structure. A selection team of city staff and Transtech, Inc., the Construction Management Company for the Vineyard Parking Structure Project, reviewed and scored the four submittals.
According to the city, “McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. was scored the highest based on their blend of exterior appeal, favorable project timeline, project cost, and favorable reference checks.”
The original contract amount was for $24.9 million.
The staff report for next Tuesday’s council meeting states, “As design efforts continued for the Ontario Sports Empire, it was determined that additional parking will be needed in the design of the Vineyard Parking Structure to facilitate the high demand of visitors and high volume of vehicles. The three-story parking structure will be redesigned to a six level parking structure. This new design will include 1300 parking spots, four elevators, three observation decks, three stairwells with glass, urban modified façade, and a jumbotron attachment to the structure.”
Former Ontario City Auditor Brad Neumann this week told the Sentinel that the change order and its scope raises “significant concerns. Under California law, substantial alterations to an existing contract’s scope – referred to legally as ‘cardinal changes’ – require rebidding to prevent bypassing competitive bidding processes,” Neumann said. “Given that the additional scope substantially exceeds reasonable thresholds for a change order, approval without rebidding risks violating these laws and rendering parts of this contract void under California Public Contract Code §5110.”
According to the city, “While the financial impact of the action proposed in this item is significant in light of the significant design changes, the solicitation process conducted was sufficiently robust that a further solicitation process would produce no advantage to the public, and on the contrary would cause costly, disruptive delays that would be contrary to the public interest. Had the solicitation process incorporated the now contemplated design, the results of the solicitation process would have been the same.”
Neumann said the city should hold off on the approval of the change order and make a formal determination of whether the significant scope increase constitutes a cardinal change, requiring public rebidding, and if so, cancel or rebid the expanded scope to fully comply with state competitive bidding laws.