A $9.8 million September cost estimate for a project that includes renovating one Department of Public Works building and rebuilding the other three got a closer look by engineers at Weston & Sampson, the project’s designer, last month. The news was not good. The firm looked at the estimate in three new ways and came up with numbers between $9.5 million and $10.9 million. When it presented those figures at the Nov. 17 Permanent Building Committee meeting, Chair Pablo Carbonell said, “Obviously this is not the information we wanted to hear.”
The original probable cost for the project, done by cost estimating firm PM&C in 2021, was only $4.74 million. But that number did not include soft costs, such as contingencies, which would have added approximately $1.7 million more, for a total of about $6.5 million. Weston & Sampson’s September estimate used data from real bids from similar projects between 2021 and 2023 to come up with its $9.8 million number in September, which includes soft costs.
Members of the Permanent Building Committee met with the firm a few weeks ago and asked it to use some different formulas to calculate the estimate, including one that considered only low bids for similar projects, since the town must use the lowest qualified bidder for any municipal building project.
Two of the firm’s new estimates used simple escalation factors to apply to the original estimate of $6.5 million. One calculation used the average bids between 2021 and 2023 for similar projects, and the other calculation used the low bids for that same time period. Applying those two escalation factors resulted in new estimates of $10.9 million and $10.1 million, respectively. The third new estimate, $9.5 million, was achieved by replacing PM&C’s pricing with 2023 pricing.
Weston & Sampson engineer Tony Wespiser said there is no detailed schematic design yet, so these numbers are based mainly on square footage and cost per square foot for similar projects. Once the schematic design is complete, Wespiser said, the town will get real estimates from actual bids, and if those bids are competitive, the numbers could come down.
After this exercise, Wespiser said, his firm believes that the budget for the project needs to be in the $9.5 to $10 million range. He added that he understands those numbers might not be palatable to the town, and he suggested breaking out parts of the project that could be bid as alternates, items that are priced separately so the town could choose whether to fund them.
The committee had already identified replacement of the pole barn as the only logical alternate, since it is not physically attached to the other three buildings. But Wespiser said he thought there might be a way to separate the renovation of the six-bay garage. There would be some complications, though. Since that garage is connected to two other buildings, both of which would be replaced as part of the project, sprinklers would have to be installed in all three buildings. In addition, the HVAC and electrical systems of the six-bay garage might need upgrading once new systems are installed in the other two buildings.
Carbonell instructed Weston & Sampson to continue with the schematic design and investigate the feasibility and financial impact of separating the pole barn and the six-bay garage from the main project. The committee has not yet scheduled its next meeting.
