Hollywood Burbank Airport bets big with new elevator, escalator contractor

Despite being a more expensive option, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority selected a new contractor this week to maintain and repair the airfield’s elevators, escalators and moving walkways.

Authority members voted unanimously during a meeting on Monday to award Los Angeles-based Elevators Etc. a three-year contract to perform monthly inspections and preventive maintenance of the six elevators, two escalators and six walkways for which the airport is responsible, said Anthony DeFrenza, director of engineering and maintenance for Hollywood Burbank.

The contract’s annual price will be $78,594, which is nearly double the bid from Santa Ana-based Excelsior Elevators, the other contractor that submitted a proposal for the deal. Its proposed annual preventive maintenance price was $39,906.

Although Excelsior, which has been responsible for maintenance and repairs at Hollywood Burbank the past three years, submitted a lower bid, DeFrenza said the company scored lower than Elevators Etc. in an assessment by airport staff.

Additionally, he said Excelsior had to be called out to the airport for repairs more times than airfield officials would have liked over the years.

“The current contract with Excelsior is just under $50,000, but, to date this fiscal year, we’ve spent almost $85,000 for on-call services,” DeFrenza said. “The fact that their proposal for this [new contract] reduced the amount of money they spend on annual preventative maintenance leads us to believe that we’ll spend more money on the on-call services if we maintain our current course.”

Pasadena authority member Terry Tornek said he was concerned about having a lengthy and expensive contract with a company that has not performed maintenance at Hollywood Burbank before.

“It seems like sort of an expensive bet with an unnecessarily long term,” Tornek said.

DeFrenza said he and staff members think that Elevators Etc. will do a much better job at preventive maintenance, which they hope will lead to fewer repair calls in the long run.

However, DeFrenza added that if the new contractor is not performing to the liking of airport officials, they can terminate the contract whenever they want with a 30-day notice.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio