SCARBOROUGH — With bids for the South Portland High School
renovation project coming in $4 million more than available funding,
Scarborough taxpayers who just approved $39.1 million bond to replace Wentworth
Intermediate School may be wondering if they are in store for a similar
swing-and-a-miss.
However, Dan Cecil of Harriman Associates, the architect
of record for both projects, said there’s little likelihood of repeating in
Scarborough the bid opening that shocked South Portland officials. Paul
Koziell, chairman of the Wentworth Building Committee, who has no small amount
of construction experience himself, as an executive at Freeport-based CPM
Constructors, agrees.
“It’s a fair question. No. 1, whenever a school
project in close proximity to ours comes in over budget, we are concerned,”
Koziell said. “[However] the South Portland High School project is entirely
different from Wentworth Intermediate School. There are layers of complexity
there not present in our construction project. So, really, in a lot of ways,
its apples and oranges.”
“Wentworth is about half the size,” said Cecil.
“It is on an as-simple-as-can-be flat site with no soils problems like South
Portland has. It is a very simple project to build.”
One contributing factor to the South Portland
overrun, Cecil said, is the project phasing, which will force contractors to
stop, restage and start again, as students are moved about the site to
accommodate the next section to be built. At Wentworth, however, the students
will remain in the building while the new one goes up next door, then simply
move in 2014, at which time the old building will be demolished.
“So, we not gong to be closing a wing and
jamming the kids somewhere else,” Koziell said.
“At South Portland, it will be incredibly
invasive construction, moving through the building, moving students, renovating
parts, moving students back,” said Cecil. “To do that while keeping the
building open and functioning well for the comfort of students and staff adds a
lot in terms of cost and complexity.”
Koziell and Cecil agree that another issue at
play is the length of time from bond vote to bid opening – 16 months in South
Portland, compared to seven months in Scarborough.
Cecil said a number of factors entered into the
equation in South Portland, including a post-bond-vote jump in commodity prices
– including 40-cents per gallon of gas and 50-cents per pound of copper – as
well as the simple effect of inflation.
In presentations to South Portland officials,
Cecil has said one contributing factor to the high project bids there was the
relatively low number of bidders – just four. Cecil said in post-bid talks
with contractors he was “very surprised” to find that “the construction market
may be bottoming out.”
Three general contractors and a host of
subcontractors never bid, simply because they claim to be too busy, said Cecil,
who noted “more than $450 million” in work in the regional pipeline, including the
new $285 million hospital in Augusta, the $160 million Oxford Casino, a $25
million overhaul to the Cumberland County Civic Center, a new corporate
headquarters for Idexx in Westbrook and $25 million project at Bates College.
“A number of them told us they are busier than they’ve been
in years, although in many cases that’s because they don’t seem to be extremely
confident that the economy has turned around, and have not really hired on like
they otherwise might,” said Cecil.
“This is the sweet spot of the season right
now,” said Koziell, predicting no dearth of bidders for work slated to begin in
December. “The immediate need for winter work should make for a much more
competitive bid.”
Meanwhile, Koziell said the Wentworth project
not only has a contingency fund for unexpected changes in construction costs
during the two-year build, it also has a “significant” fudge-factor built in,
in case anything crazy does happen with the bids.
“Just to make sure we are where we expect to be,
we will be asking the architect and his team to provide a number of estimates
as we go through the design process to confirm that his numbers are in fact
accurate,” said Koziell. “In addition, we may look to binging in an independent
third party to work on bid estimates.”
Hit the mark on guessing what contractors will
bid is important, because high bids could mean re-bidding the project, or else
jumping back into the design to make cuts, either one of which could delay the
start of construction, expected to being this winter after site prep work
slated for summer and fall.
“Winter means we’ll be hitting is just right for
contractors,” said Koziell, predicting a healthy stream of interest in the
project.
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