If you looked at the agenda beforehand, you might have thought this meeting was going to be pretty routine. However, addendums to the agenda had the board voting on approving the latest plans for the MS (PlanCon G), the four prime contracts (General Construction, Electrical, Plumbing and HVAC) and the contract to provide materials services during construction of the MS.
Meeting started a bit late, around 7:55 PM. Absent were: Marino, Audenreid and Hensley (there was a comment made by a community member about there only being six members present for such an important vote, but five makes a quorum and the solicitor stated that decisions made by a "majority" of the council are binding, so there you go).
I asked at the beginning of the meeting about the lack of a track in NASD. I joked whether the track team knew there currently wasn't a track. Dr. Lesky replied that next year we'll have to bus the track team somewhere (Wilson and Moravian were named) for track but they hoped that some of the field events could be accommodated somewhere within NASD. Also, it was learned that they expect the all season track planned for the MS site to be completed before the school and finished in time for the Spring 2009 track season.
Most of the meeting focused on the MS bids. Bob Furst (architect) presented some 3-D rendered drawings (the same ones presented at the B&G meeting last Thursday) of the school, auditorium and natatorium. Again, the building and all it encompasses is very impressive.
Mr. Maher had several questions about the alternates and the dollar figures. See my B&G post. Specifically, he stated "We don't have to spend every dollar allocated". He was concerned that originally our project contingency was $3.6M. After including several alternates (most of them in GC portion of the contract; such as the much discussed terrazzo flooring), or contingency is approximately $800K. (For those of you who may be unaware, contingency is money "built-in" to a project in anticipation of possible cost overruns or change orders). Basically, Mr. Maher seemed concerned that we have essentially "spent" almost $2.8M upfront and we haven't even broken ground yet.
I asked what happens to the money if we don't spend it "all". Mr. Maher informed me that we haven't borrowed the money yet. The thinking there is, that if we don't add all the alternates, we wouldn't have to borrow as much. Ms. Rishcoff stated that the unspent money could also be used to pay down debt.
In the end, the board voted (5-1) to accept all the bids with the alternates presented at the B&G meeting. Some of those alternates include:
- Terrazzo flooring ($914K)
- Engineered fill as sub-base in lieu of using on-site material ($412K)
- Sod in lieu of grass seed around the building ($33K)
- High School type scoreboard in the gym and Type 1 Scoreboard in the Natatorium
- Wanger cabinets (the "Cadillac" of cabinets) in lieu of laminate cabinets in the music/band rooms
- UV disinfectant system for the pool ($35K)
- Pool cover ($14K)
- "unclassified excavation"
- Deletion of the bus canopy (-$189K).
There were several others. I didn't get all the dollar amounts. Some of these (in my mind) are well worth the expenditure. The unclassified excavation and the use of engineered sub-base are dollars well spent. Apparently, when the building which is now the admin building was built in 1984, "unexpected" rock/material caused delays and costs overruns to the tune of $1-2M.
That was about it. Meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM.
2 comments:
I know the NASD has a tight schedule to meet, but I have to admit I'm surprised that bids were opened on Thursday, material reviewed, recommendations made and a board vote was completed on Monday. I thought they'd go with the special meeting on 9/4 and hopefully have the entire board in attendance.
Seems like a lot of information was digested in a short period of time to get this done.
The $900,000 upgrade to flooring, having the cadillac of cabinets (cost not noted), sod instead of grass ($33,000), and upgraded scoreboards (cost not noted) for the gym and pool (this will be the fourth gym in the NASD that can host competitions) will make the building nice and more quickly give it a finished look, but at $1M give or take when we've nearly eliminated our contingency, these may have been wants, not needs and will undoubtedly be fodder for those calling it the new Tag Majal.
Having said that it looks like they didn't take the alt for a November 1 opening, so September 1, 2009 is the date.
Does anyone know if there are penalties for not making this date?
There are indeed penalties (Liquidated Damages) for not meeting schedule. Typically, these are on the order of some dollar amount per day that the project (or part of the project) that is late. I asked Jamie Lynch of D'Huy Engineering this very same question at the B&G meeting last Thursday. He told me that each contract has proposed liquidated damages (figures such as $2-4K per day were mentioned).
Most of the dollar figures for the alternates were obtained from the B&G meeting. I didn't have a copy of all the bids and alternates, so I only got the dollar amount when someone mentioned it.
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