Portland school board sets vote on $61M contract for construction management amid potential legal challenge

Members of the Portland Public Schools board are slated to vote Tuesday on a five-year, $61 million contract with a Texas-based construction firm that the district’s superintendent says is the best choice to oversee more than a billion in taxpayer-funded upgrades for three high schools.

The partnership with Grapevine, Texas-based Procedeo “strengthens our capacity, stabilizes project leadership and supports a more predictable and transparent delivery of voter-approved improvements,” Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong wrote in a memo submitted to the school board in advance of the vote.

But the construction management firm that finished second to Procedeo in the district’s competitive bidding process is challenging that decision. In a letter shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Tur