Central School building project is over budget
Published on June 7th, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - Alexandria Construction of Newton, Mass. is the low bidder on the Central School project, but its $10.5 million bid is almost $3 million higher than the original construction estimate of $7.6 million.
Can the project be put back on budget? Will the town need to ask for more money? Will the project be finished in time to receive state reimbursement? Will the schools be built? This article is the first in a series, a brief introduction, to an analysis of the Stoneham School Building Project and what it means to the townspeople.
Central School bids were opened on June 2. Remediation of contamination was assumed for now to be $500,000, according to estimates from the town and the Parents for Healthy Schools group. Members of this group asked why the remaining discrepancy was so large.
Dan Hogan, Chairman of the School Building Committee said that his committee, had expected a figure of around $9 million because construction costs have been escalating due to a building boom.
Finance Committee member John Warren said the Building Committee will look for ways to reduce the low bid with change orders. He said the same approach was used to keep the Main Street South School on budget after unforeseen soil removal increased costs on that site.
The proposed Central School off Central Street is the second of four elementary schools scheduled to be built with state aid. Under the Massachusetts School Building Assistance Bureau program the state will reimburse Stoneham for 63 percent of building costs.
Issues surrounding the overall project budget — $39.5 million — are getting complex and nasty.
Critics say unforeseen costs should have been seen; they allege speeding up the building schedule to ensure the project meets the funding parameters of the state program means raising costs with overtime; and they disapprove of altering bids to make the budget work.
Town officials say every job has some surprises; they explain that change orders just adjust for when the most lavish expense, say marble over ceramic tile, just doesn't make sense; and they say speeding up the process means saving money by avoiding rising labor costs.
This week Flansburgh Associates, the Boston architects working on the schools, are reviewing the Alexandria bid.
The Building Committee meets tonight, June 7, and the School Committee meets Thursday, June 8. The School Committee has the final authority to sign the contract or pursue other options.
All the schools can be built theoretically in time for state reimbursement even if the Central School is redesigned and rebid. But thinking about what contingency time has already been eaten up and looking at the trends in construction labor costs, delays could realistically doom the project.
If the Central School does go as is, the pool of money left for Robin Hood and Colonial Park will be relatively more shallow.
Is this the way it will have to be? What will the neighbors say? The building project continues to raise pointed questions.
In other school news:
A mandatory risk assessment of land bordering the proposed Central School site revealed a "significant risk to public welfare" that exceeds the "lifetime cancer risk limit" set by the state, according to a report from Gannett-Fleming, Inc. of Braintree.
The affected area is less than two acres. The company tested the former railroad bed area at the request of Gale, the Pembroke-based firm handling remediation on the site. Arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (from petroleum products) were found as predicted by sample testing done previously by Gale.
"The most sensitive receptor (to the carcinogens) is the child recreational user," the Gannett-Fleming report reads.
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