The luck of the Irish was with Town Hall on March 17 when general contractor bids were opened and the lowest proved to be less than recent estimates had predicted.
The low bid of $2,253,135 came from G.V.W. Inc. of East Boston and was about $13,000 less than the construction estimate presented by the Board of Selectmen at the October 2014 Special Town Meeting. At that meeting, the selectmen said their estimates for total construction and soft costs (such as those for design and project management) would fall well within the budget allotted for the project.
The town received seven bids, ranging from G.V.W.’s low bid to a high bid of $2.9 million from Northern Contracting Corp. in Canton. The second lowest bid, $2,317,700, was submitted by M. O’Connor Contracting of West Roxbury.
Prospects looked a bit rocky when LLB Architect Drayton Fair opened and read the first bid: “$2.88 million,” he announced. Town Hall Construction Committee member Pablo Carbonell was later overheard saying, “That first one made me nervous.”
Smiling faces
But when it was all over, the mood in the room was decidedly more upbeat than in September 2013, when only two contractors bid on the original Town Hall renovation project and the lowest bid exceeded the project estimate by 26 percent. One month later a Special Town Meeting rejected a request by the selectmen for additional funds to make up the difference, and the project was scaled back to fit with the original $3.97 million budget approved by the town in 2012.
In October 2014, the Board of Selectmen returned to a Special Town Meeting with a new design whose estimated base construction cost was $2,266,095. This time, meeting attendees endorsed the project.
Add alternates
In addition to a base construction bid, each of the seven contractors submitted bids for new windows and a cupola that had been included in bid documents as “add alternates.” Add alternates are not part of the base bid, but the town may elect to do them if the budget allows. G.V.W.’s bid for new windows was $121,000, about $14,000 less than the October estimate, and its bid for the cupola was $50,000, just under the estimate by $2,600. The Town Hall Construction Committee will work with the selectmen and the project manager, Vertex, to determine if there is room in the budget for these items.
What happens next?
The next step is for Vertex to check the low bidder’s references and provide that information to the building committee. The committee will meet on March 19, when it will take a closer look at Vertex’s reference information. The building committee plans to choose a general contractor to recommend to the selectmen by the March 24 selectmen’s meeting. The project is on track to begin April 20.
