The wide range of prices for the contract to build the latest major stretch of rail has the Honolulu City Council chairman worried that costs could rise — and he wants to know what project officials plan to do to keep costs in check.

In a letter sent Monday to rail’s top executive, Council Chairman Ernie Martin flagged the nearly $650 million difference between the cheapest and most expensive bids to erect the next 5.2 miles of guideway and four stations to Middle Street.

“Was there any in depth analysis of the disparity or the level of confidence in the ability of the low bidder to complete the job according to the terms of the contract?” Martin wrote in his letter to Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Director Dan Grabauskas.

The winning construction team, Shimmick/Traylor/Granite JV, bid nearly $875 million for that work. The most expensive proposal came from Nan-POSEC-HLRT JV, which bid more than $1.5 billion. (A third venture, Healy/Hawaiian Dredging JV bid more than $1 billion.)

Martin twice wrote that HART needs to “hold the line” on the costs, and asked to know what steps the rail agency would take to do that. Project overruns have pushed the largest public works project in the state’s history at least $1.5 billion over budget, according to the latest official estimates.

“Given the financial uncertainty that continues to cloud this project, your efforts will provide the City Council and more importantly, the taxpayers of the City & County of Honolulu, with much needed assurances that we are doing all we can to hold the line on the cost of rail,” Martin wrote.

In an emailed statement Wednesday, Grabauskas said: “Cost containment continues to be a topmost priority as we proceed to the next phase of construction.”

“We share Chair Martin’s concerns about cost controls and will apply lessons learned from the first half of the project,” the email further stated.

On July 29, the day that HART announced the winning proposal, Nan Inc.’s owner said that how much a firm was willing to risk could account for the wide range in the three proposed prices.

“It’s going to be a big battle with HART during construction” because there’s so much underground utility work there, said Nan Shin, owner of Nan Inc.

Nan has a $27 million contract for utility relocation along the airport guideway section. Shin estimated there is more than $200 million in utility relocation work remaining along the 5.2-mile stretch of Shimmick’s contract — and he wondered whether the winning venture included that work in its price.

At a July 29 press conference, Grabauskas said that the Shimmick venture “gave a very strong proposal both in terms of quality as well as … the price.” The proposal fell on the high end of an April 2015 HART range that estimated the work would cost between $750 million and $875 million. The Shimmick venture’s price is not pushing the project’s budget deficit “any higher. If anything it’s pushing it lower,” Grabauskas said.

On Monday, Martin further wrote that it would be “yet another cause of public disillusionment” should the contract’s costs climb.

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