A Nashville firm had the low bid for constructing a portion of the $40 million employee training center that is to be built at the site of the $1 billion Volkswagen plant at the Enterprise South Industrial Park.
DF Chase of Nashville was far lower than eight other bidders.
The low bid for installing the footings, walls and roof was $7.34 million.
One board member of the City Bond Board that approved the contract noted that the second low bid was $12.5 million. He said that was "a huge gap."
Bill Payne, city engineer, said the $12.5 million bid included over $2 million for a "green roof" on the facility. He said the winning DF Chase bid did not include such a large amount for the green roof.
He said that was about a $900,000 difference on the base bid between Chase and the second lowest bidder.
He said it was decided to omit the green roof because that would put the project over budget.
Chase recently won a bid to construct the VW energy plant. That bid was $3,269,835.
Mr. Payne said Chase was aided in its most recent bid by the fact it had won the earlier contract and would already have crews set up at the site.
Chattanooga State Community College is to operate the training center, which will be near the VW plant.
City Attorney Mike McMahan said some cities have requirements on contracts steering them to local firms, but he said bidding here is "wide open."
A Chase official said some local sub-contractors may be used, but he said the bid was based on the lowest bids by sub-contractors.