NASD Building & Grounds Meeting 8/23 (MS Bids!)

The NASD Buildings & Grounds meeting was held at 6:30 PM on Thursday 8/23. Attendance included committee members (Keller, Butz, Audenreid, McDonald), Dr. Lesky, Ms. Swigart, Ms. Rishcoff, representatives from D'Huy Engineering Inc. (DEI) and Furst Architecture. And oh yeah, Scott and myself.

First on the agenda, was the status of the summer projects. Most of those projects are completed with the exception of some minor project at BES and mulching of the playgrounds (presumably at all the schools) that will be completed in Sept. Mr. Keller noted that this was "nothing to jeopardize the security or safety of the students".

The rest of the meeting was devoted to the MS project and the bids that had been opened earlier in the day at 2PM. Jamie Lynch of DEI said that we were "extremely successful in attracting bidders". A few numbers:

Board Approved Project Maximum Cost: $57,895,461
"Soft" Costs (which include but are not limited to waste management, builder's risk insurance, fees for design, land development, movable fixtures and equipment, financing, building permit fees, etc): $7,764,766

That leaves $50,130,685 balance remaining for construction of the four bid packages (General Construction, Electrical, HVAC and Plumbing). I won't go into all the exact numbers and who DEI was recommending, but I'll give you the totals and some of the alternates that were discussed. The total of the four bid packages with recommended alternates was $49,284,000. That leaves approximately $870,000 left over for contingencies.

Some of the GC alternates discussed were the flooring (approximately $1M additional for terrazzo flooring), sod in lieu of seeding, upgraded cabinets in the music/band rooms, etc. One interesting alternate was the option of delaying the school completion until Nov 2009.

** Side note:
I still do not see how NASD can accommodate a radical change in busing/classes/etc. mid year. Imagine, you're a 4th grader going to LNES on Friday and then on the following Monday (or perhaps Jan 2nd) you're supposed to get on a completely different bus and go up the the "old" MS? Talk about your transitions!!! It's not only that, but the computer systems will have to be updated to reflect where the kids are at, staff moved around (with their supplies), etc., etc. It seems better suited for a summer project.
End side note **

There were a few alternates discussed on the HVAC, Electrical and Plumbing side, but no "big ticket" items, except perhaps the transformer (an approx. $280,000 deduct).

After the presentation of the bids, a short presentation on the pool and auditorium was shown. They look very nice.

Time was given at the end for questions from the public (all two of us). We asked some questions regarding schedule and liquidated damages for failure to meet schedule. Sounds good.

A couple points that should be made. When this project was presented to the public at the Jan 9th, Act 34 meeting, the costs/budgets/estimates were as follows:

Total project: $57,895,451
GC, Electrical, HVAC, Plumbing: $46,653,000
"Soft" Costs: $7,628681
Contingency: $3,613,770

I think the thing to note here is the fact that our original project contingency was $3.6M. It's now somewhere around $800K. You should also see that the bid costs for the four contracts was about $2.6M HIGHER than originally estimated (hence the reduction in the overall project contingency). It should be noted that these final figures may go up or down depending on the final bids/alternates voted on by the board.