By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The project development board for a new justice center for Barren County on Wednesday approved a package of winning construction subcontractor bids as recommended by the construction manager.
Before getting into that, though, Tommy Gumm, CEO of Alliance Corp., which was chosen as the construction management firm for the project, said, “It’s a great day, a day that we’ve been looking forward to with anticipation for quite a while.”
He first provided a bit of a budget review for the construction phase, designated as Phase D. The preconstruction bid package plus the construction management fee for that phase totaled roughly $1.1 million. The construction bids totaled $34,574,432.35, for a total of $35,679,220.71.
Earlier this year, the potential budget Gumm presented was nearly $43 million, so the figure so far is more than $7.3 million less than that, he was very pleased that the bids had come in roughly 20 percent less than his projected budget. Other costs that will use some of that amount will still need to be factored in for this phase, though, and the total of those is as yet unknown.
The four board members visibly present at the time unanimously agreed to accept the recommended bids totaling $34.57 million as a group.
Also during his discussion, Gumm said the five change orders the board members had before them for approval were the last ones for preconstruction bids and there was the final application for payment for the preparation of the bid packages with the disbursement request they had.
“So that will clean that up and get that out of our way, so we can move forward with the Phase D bond sale,” he said.
In opening the floor for a motion, Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd, who chairs the board, summarized each of the change orders.
Change Order 6 was a DPO reconciliation for $0. Change Order 7 had a cost reduction of $1,569.81 related to a storm drainage structure. Change Order 8 contained a cost reduction of $4,364.84 related to a change in the weir design, also pertaining to storm water drainage.
Change Order 9, adding $1,867.53 was related to a retaining wall. Change Order 10, for unsuitable soils, added $51,595.07 to the preconstruction cost.
The vote approving the change orders as a group was unanimous, with five members visibly present. Rich Alexander was the only member not present for any of the meeting, and he is attending an out-of-state conference.
Next up was a disbursement request for $118,794.71, which was approved unanimously by the five present.
Gumm also announced Alliance’s construction team moving forward with the justice center project. Tim Geegan, an Alliance partner and the officer in charge for this project, and Ryan Burris, a 30-year resident of Barren County, were present for the introductions. Gumm said the other two had scheduling conflicts and couldn’t attend, but the company’s overall project manager for this is Dalton Jackson, a Barren County High School graduate currently living in Bowling Green, and its on-site project manager is going to be Dick Doty.
Jokingly, he said that if the board needed any references for Doty, a former Glasgow mayor, they would try to round up some, as Byrd laughed aloud.
Byrd asked Gumm about whether she needed to be the one communicating with Baird, the financial consulting firm, on the bond amount. The bonds will be sold in the name of the county public property corporation, which is composed of the same people as the Barren County Fiscal Court, and it will be a county-owned facility. The Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts will lease the facility from the county, as it does the current courthouse, though, so the state funds for the project will ultimately be funneled through the AOC to the county for it to make payments on the bond debt.
Answering Byrd’s question, Gumm said, “Not yet.”
He told her that now that they have the construction costs from the subcontractors nailed down, Alliance and the AOC can determine the other costs that need to be included.
“So, we’re real close,” he said.
Once they’ve determined the guaranteed maximum price for the total project cost, they can get that figure to the financial consultants.
Baird then will be using those figures determined by Alliance and the AOC to process a bond sale will pay off previous bond anticipation notes – more temporary loans meant to provide cash flow for the earlier stages of the project – and cover the cost of construction and other anticipated costs.
Jerry Combs, who heads the AOC Division of Capital Construction, said some of the things that will be included in that total project cost are fees, utilities, special inspections and printing costs, and that will all go through the AOC’s budget department.
Byrd then asked Gumm what the next steps with them are, and he said the GMP – guaranteed maximum price – contract to Alliance has to get done, “which should happen soon, and then we should be ready to mobilize at that point in time, once we get our contracts out to the subcontractors.”
Combs said the AOC will need to make amendments to that contract, and he projected 30 to 45 days for that to happen, but he hoped it would happen sooner.
Circuit Judge John T. Alexander, vice chair of the local project development board, expressed appreciation for the work that specifically went into preparing the bid packages and presentation of the bid amounts, recommendations and such.
“We were able to get it and see it and understand it and not have to vet it ourselves to see if these things, for example, somebody hadn’t been in business for 10 years or whatever. Those were invaluable things that you all did. We’re grateful this was all put together in a way that we were able to grab ahold of it and look at it, so I appreciate that,” Alexander said.
Dan Peffer, capital construction project coordinator for the AOC, said three invoices had been sent to the county for special inspections for this project that the county paid, so he would be working on getting a disbursement request together for the county to get reimbursed for those, and that may be approved through the executive committee.
With discussion of the next regular meeting date, Peffer said they are likely not to need it. It is still scheduled for now, in case something else comes up that needs to be addressed. If it happens, it would be at 2:30 p.m. Sept. 24 in Fiscal Court Chambers on Floor 3 of the Barren County Government Center, 117 N. Public Square, Glasgow.
Construction bid details
Prefacing the bid vote, Gumm said that after reviewing the bids and meeting with each of the low bidders, the Alliance team members “are confident in our proposed bidder set.”
A list of all the bidders for each of the 21 bid-package categories and their total bids was provided to the board members on Tuesday, along with a notation of whether it was the low bid and whether it was compliant with what was requested.
In one case, which Gumm pointed out during the meeting, it was determined through postbid review that the company with the lower bid for structural steel and miscellaneous steel, Traughber Mechanical Services, did not meet the required experience level for a project of this size and complexity, so the bid was deemed noncompliant. The only other bidder, Stewart Richey Construction, was chosen with a bid of $4,152,445.
That bid was the third-costliest of the batch, with masonry being the highest cost among the various construction elements and plumbing and HVAC together being the next highest.
In the 20 other categories, all the bids were determined to be compliant, and the companies with the low bids were chosen. They were:
– Hot Mixed Asphalt and Striping: Scotty’s Contracting, $511,015;
– Landscaping: Luxury Garden Center, $117,333.35;
– General Trades (e.g. carpentry, insulation, detention equipment, not included in other packages): Alliance Corp., $1,707,000;
– Concrete: Alliance Corp., $2,853,000;
– Masonry: Carmicle Masonry, $6,678,000;
– Roofing, Wall Panels, Sheet Metal, Flashing and Trim: American Roofing & Metals, $732,461;
– Steel Doors, Frames, Flush Wood Doors, and Finish Hardware: Atlas Companies, $534,571;
– Aluminum Framed Entrances and Storefronts, Glazed Aluminum Curtain Walls & ACM Panels: Lake Cumberland Glass, $2,522,000;
– Gypsum Board Assemblies: Drywall Systems Plus, $1,763,900;
– Ceramic Tile and Porcelain Tile: Martina Brothers, $695,020;
– Resinous Matrix Terrazzo Flooring: Rosa Mosaic & Tile, $209,355;
– Acoustical Panel Ceiling: Bennetts Contracting, $349,750;
– Flooring: Bennetts Contracting, $229,750;
– Painting and Joint Sealants: A & A Contracting, $283,674;
– Miscellaneous Specialties (e.g. toilet partitions and accessories, signage): Atlas Companies, $372,875;
– Casework and Interior Finished Carpentry: Stidham Cabinet Inc., $1,695,000;
– Hydraulic Elevators: Elevator Solutions, $895,000;
– Fire Suppression: Stewart Richey Construction, $431,683;
– Plumbing and HVAC: Knights Mechanical, $4,764,600; and
– Electrical: Lark Electric, $3,076,000.
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