Organizers of the M1 Rail streetcar system plan to award the primary contract to design and build the $137 million transit line in less than two weeks.

Bids to become the construction manager and general contractor for the Detroit project on Woodward Avenue are due Friday and will be vetted by a panel of M1 staffers and the, said M1 COO Paul Childs.

The bid is scheduled to be awarded May 24, with price negotiation to begin the following day. The goal is for work to commence by July or August.

"It's an aggressive timeline, we know that," Childs said.

The contract will be for the $85 million construction of the 3.3-mile grade-level streetcar loop between Hart Plaza and New Center.

Of that, $65.5 million is M1 funding, and the remainder is state funding to do Woodward resurfacing concurrently with the streetcar project, Childs said. The MDOT work will be between Sibley and Chandler streets.

The bid will cover all major construction, such as the tracks, power control and passenger stations, Childs said.

Construction also will include replacement of the Woodward Avenue bridge over I-94.

A second bid will be sought later this year for the $9.5 million construction of a vehicle storage and maintenance facility.

A third bid, estimated to be worth $27 million, is for six streetcars.

M1 intends to seek its cars as part of a transit vehicle order already underway with another public transportation agency, Childs said.

Because transit vehicles are expensive and take a long time to build to order -- orders can be for hundreds of cars, and there is a limited number of streetcar makers -- attaching its vehicle needs to another system's order is a common practice in the transit industry because it can reduce turnaround time and cost.

"Our strategy is a piggyback strategy. We're a small player in a gigantic ocean," Childs said.

M1 has looked at rail orders from Cincinnati; Salt Lake City; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; and Tucson, Ariz.

While Childs couldn't discuss specifics, M1 previously has said it's looked closely at Cincinnati's $20 million procurement of five streetcars for its $110 million plan to install a 3.8-mile downtown line.

Cincinnati last year selected Elmira, N.Y.-based, a subsidiary of Spain's, as its preferred vendor to manufacture the five streetcars, with an option for up to 25 more cars.

Delivery for that system is expected to take 18 months.

The final bid, which Childs said won't be let until late this year or early in 2014, is for a private-sector vendor to operate and maintain the streetcar system. M1 has estimated that the system will cost $5 million initially to operate and maintain annually.

"There's a fair number of transit operators out there," he said.

Childs said one example of a private operator is Lombard, Ill.-based, which contractually operates transit systems in several U.S. cities.

Veolia is the North American arm of Paris-based, which manages transportation systems in 28 countries and had revenue of $9.8 billion last year.

For example, Veolia has a 10-year, $560 million contract with theto manage the city's three streetcar lines, 32 bus routes and paratransit service -- which see a combined 12 million riders annually.

Under its New Orleans deal, all of the authority's employees work for Veolia, and the company is responsible for all operations, safety, maintenance, customer care, routes, schedules, capital planning and grant administration.

M1, a privately run nonprofit with public and private financing, is expected to employ a similar arrangement. It eventually intends to turn over ownership of the system to the new regional transit authority.

Childs said M1 also is negotiating consulting contracts now with San Francisco-basedto do design work and with Kansas City-basedto act as owner's representative on the project, Childs said.

M1 previously hired Detroit-basedas its outside public and media relations agency and is negotiating contracts with a pair of land appraisers, Childs said.

The rail project also has hired several executives in recent months as it has transitioned from a proposal to a system with federal approval and funding to proceed.

The general contractor/construction manager RFP was issued April 17 and follows state and federal bid rules.

"As soon as they put a nickel in your pocket, you're a federal project," Childs said. Theis providing $25 million in funding, and final federal approval to proceed with construction came April 22.

M1's goal is to be operating by the fourth quarter of 2015.

Construction from Adams Street south to Congress Street is scheduled for June through August 2015, and north of Adams from April 2014 to August 2015, according to M1's bid documents.

Work on the maintenance facility and system testing will happen in fall of 2015.

M1's plan is a mostly curbside-running, fixed-rail streetcar circulator system, co-mingled with traffic, with 11 stops between Grand Boulevard and Congress Street. It will run in the median at its north and south ends.