Paving is the most public-dependent trade in construction. Roads, parking, drainage and sitework are overwhelmingly bought by government, and in Florida that means FDOT, seven districts of it, plus every county and city with a road department.
The largest single source in the state by a wide margin. Highway construction and resurfacing, bridge approaches, intersection improvements, drainage, shoulder work, guardrail, striping and maintenance contracts, across seven districts.
FDOT operates on a published letting schedule, which is genuinely useful — you can see what is coming and plan capacity around it rather than reacting. Above a threshold, prequalification is required before you may bid at all, and it demands audited financial statements. Our guide to FDOT bid opportunities covers the process and the capacity rating system.
County road departments resurface continuously, and the work suits mid-sized contractors well. Annual resurfacing programmes, intersection work, sidewalk construction, drainage improvements, and parking areas at county facilities.
Many counties let annual resurfacing contracts on unit pricing — a single award covering a year of work across a list of streets. These are among the most valuable contracts available to a paving contractor because they convert one bid into a season of production.
Street resurfacing, parking lots, alleys, sidewalks, ADA ramp compliance, park paths and municipal facility work. Individually smaller than county programmes but numerous, and smaller cities are frequently less contested than the county work everyone watches.
Parking lots, bus loops, driveways, walkways and drainage across every campus. Like roofing, much of this is scheduled around the academic calendar, meaning summer work and spring bidding.
Airfield paving is a specialty with its own requirements and materials standards, but airports also buy ordinary parking, access road and landside work. Ports, water management districts and authorities all buy sitework and are procured separately from the counties they sit in.
Through SAM.gov — military installations, VA campuses, national park roads and federal facility parking. Federal work brings Davis-Bacon prevailing wage with weekly certified payroll, covered in our guide to prevailing wage in Florida.
Unlike most trades, paving contractors cannot ignore government work and survive on private jobs. That makes seeing the public pipeline a core business function rather than a side activity.
Most paving and sitework firms reach the largest projects as subcontractors to prime contractors, and this deserves as much attention as bidding prime.
Primes bidding FDOT and large county work need subs for striping, guardrail, drainage structures, concrete flatwork, fencing, landscaping and specialty items. They assemble that pricing during the advertisement period, which means the useful moment to make contact is when a project advertises — not after it is awarded.
Federally assisted FDOT contracts carry DBE participation goals. A prime must meet the goal through certified subcontractors or document good faith efforts, so primes actively search the DBE directory for firms in the trades they need.
For a certified firm this means receiving solicitations from primes who would never have found you otherwise. Florida’s Unified Certification Program means one certification is recognised statewide — see DBE certification in Florida.
Roadway work requires MOT plans, certified personnel and the equipment to implement them. It is a genuine cost line and a genuine capability, and contractors moving from parking lots to roadway work sometimes underestimate both.
FDOT and most agencies publish bid tabulations after opening — every bidder, every unit price, line by line.
For a paving contractor this is the most useful public document available. It shows who is bidding in your area, how aggressive they are, and exactly where your unit prices sit against theirs on the items that matter. A contractor who reviews tabs after every letting prices better than one who does not, and it costs nothing but attention.
Paving is weather-dependent and production-driven, which makes pipeline visibility more valuable than in most trades. A crew and a plant idle for three weeks is expensive in a way an idle roofing crew is not.
The published FDOT letting schedule helps considerably. County annual resurfacing programmes tend to follow fiscal year budgets, and school work clusters around summer. Knowing what is coming lets you sequence bids so awards land when you have capacity rather than all at once.
FDOT lettings, county resurfacing programmes, city street work, school parking and the authorities that procure separately. Filtered to your counties. Twenty-five founding seats at $79/mo, locked for life.
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