Every day, some 10 to 15 people show up and ask about jobs at the Mariposa Port of Entry construction project, said Robert Castelan, local office manager for the Department of Economic Security Employment Services in Nogales.

“We have a lot of experienced carpenters, electricians and plumbers,” he said. “They’re receiving unemployment benefits and they can’t find anything in construction.”

Earth-moving work began last fall on the $199 million project to expand and reconfigure the Mariposa port, but only GRG Construction of Tucson placed a job order with his office, Castelan said. The company, which has plants in Rio Rico, also recruited heavy equipment and cement workers at a career fair last November.

“Hensel Phelps (the prime contractor for Phase I) hired us to do the sewer, water and storm drain piping,” GRG owner Glen Greer told the Nogales International.

The federal General Services Administration (GSA) is managing the port project and will soon take bids for Phase II – facilities construction – at the federal business opportunities Web site, www.fbo.gov.

The current facilities will be demolished and rebuilt during the next three years, said J.B. Manson, chair of the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority. His coalition of business, community and government entities lobbied for several years to land funding for the port expansion.

The construction contract will exceed $100 million, Manson said. GSA requires a 20 percent bond at the time the bid is submitted and performance and payment bonds before construction begins.

“There are very few general contractors who can bid that much out,” Manson said.

The job is listed on the Web site for federal business opportunities (www.fbo.gov). Companies from the East Coast, Northwest, Midwest and a few from Arizona have put themselves on the list of interested vendors.

“We leave it up to the contractor to advertise for subcontractors,” said Gene Gibson, regional public affairs officer for GSA. She expects GSA to name a contractor by March 15.

Because the contract exceeds $1 million, the prime contractor must submit a subcontracting plan that includes small businesses, Gibson said. Last year, the federal goal required 45 percent of the work to be subcontracted to small disadvantaged businesses (18 percent), women-owned (5 percent), HUB Zone (3 percent), veteran-owned (3 percent) and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses (3 percent).

“The idea, whenever possible, is to bring in local companies,” Gibson said. “But they have to have the ability to provide the service.”

Subcontractors will need the technical expertise and must run background checks on each employee to be sure they are eligible to work in the U.S., Gibson said.

“Experience with this kind of project would be a factor,” something small contractors in Santa Cruz County may lack, said Luis Ramirez, Port Authority adviser. “Being a sub to a subcontractor, I think that’s where the opportunities lie.”

Of all the federal stimulus work in Arizona, the Mariposa expansion is the largest single project, Ramirez said. In letters to GSA, “the Port Authority has been stressing the need to reach out to the local community.”

Last summer, GSA held an open house for the earth-moving bid so contractors could meet, Manson said. At least 110 people attended.

The Port Authority is requesting a second meeting at the site for facilities contractors, Ramirez said.

Nogales contractors Ramiro Alfaro and Rafael Robles said they never got any notice from the Port Authority about the opportunities.

“When they use that old system of only one contractor, it doesn’t give the local minority small business owner a chance,” Robles said. “All these agencies need to spread the contract out to two or three contractors.”

Getting a bond to bid for a large job is also a hurdle, Robles said. “It’s impossible for 90 percent of the contractors.”

When a contractor bids a job, he must post an insurance bond equal to the value of the contract in case something happens and he cannot finish the work, said General Contractor Michael Karam of Rio Rico. “I would have to come up with 10 to 15 percent of that money in cash. There’s no one here that has that kind of revenue behind them.”

Moreover, on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) project, contractors must complete a mountain of paperwork to ensure the stimulus money is helping the local economy, Karam said. Most small contractors don’t have the staff to do it, he said.

Then there’s the problem of getting paid at least every 30 days, Karam said. “I know of companies that waited 120 days to get paid (by the prime contractor).”

With little construction work in the past few years, many local contractors are struggling financially.

Alfaro owns Cabu Construction and can’t find enough work to keep his seven employees busy, he said. “People from across the line and people from Phoenix are getting the jobs.”

Down the hill from the county complex, CORE Construction is building the $54 million county jail and courthouse. Alfaro and Robles both tried to subcontract for part of that project, they said.

“I called CORE when they first started and they said everything was already contracted out,” Robles said.

Alfaro completed an application and left a copy of his contractor’s license, but never got a call, he said. Neither have some of the unemployed workers Castelan sent to the building site, he said.

At the Employment Services office, Castelan is crossing his fingers that the port project will deliver the jobs that local workers need.

“We’re hoping the job orders will come in from the subcontractors,” he said.