Harvard is not the only town dealing with an increase in construction costs for municipal projects over the past year. The town of Upton, which received its town hall renovation bids in April, 2013, also experienced sticker shock. According to the Milford Daily News, the project, expected to cost $6 million, received a low bid of almost $7 million. The largest increase was attributed to heating and air conditioning. Upton Town Hall Renovation Committee Chairwoman Kelly McElwreath blamed the recovering economy. “Contractors are not as hungry to get these projects,” she said.
Familiar scenarios
Similar scenarios have recently played out in Dracut, Monson, Westborough, and Hopedale. In May 2013, the Lowell Sun reported that the lowest bid for the new Dracut Town Hall came in at $1.3 million over budget, raising the price tag to $9.3 million. Dracut, whose existing town hall was considered not practical to renovate and not worth saving as a historical structure, was under a consent agreement to bring its town hall into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, leaving them no choice but to come up with the extra money.
The town of Hopedale recently voted down a $6.8 million town hall renovation. As in Harvard, the question of building new instead of renovating had been bandied about in Hopedale. Ed Burt, the chairman of the Hopedale Town Hall Renovation Committee, told the Milford Daily News, “We did a full analysis of new construction, and the cost savings really weren’t there, and part of the reason is we get to save and use what they call the envelope, or the foundation, exterior walls and roof. When you build new, you have to do everything and when you add site work, the savings aren’t there.” Hopedale is currently regrouping.
Hopedale Selectman Bob Burns had this to say to the Milford Daily News: “Town Meeting will have to appropriate funds system-by-system during the next few years, thus forcing the town to bring the building up to Americans with Disabilities Act compliance. The heating system is atrocious. Replacing that will trigger everything else, and we’ll go from there. We’ll appropriate a couple hundred thousand dollars at a time. Interest rates will go up, cost of construction will go up, and it will put the town in a position to receive the least amount of benefit for the money.”
Town Hall’s costs consistent with other towns
The cost per square foot for the Harvard Town Hall renovation as supplied by Building Committee member Pete Jackson is $400 per square foot. Jackson arrived at this number by dividing the construction cost by the interior square footage of the building (not including porches, cupola or attics), which was calculated to be 9,476 square feet. By way of comparison, the Upton Town Hall Building Committee published the following actual square footage costs for various town hall renovations begun within the last year:
- • Upton: $381 per square foot
- • Westborough: $434 per square foot
- • Lincoln: $453 per square foot
Hopedale’s renovation was estimated at $461 per square foot.
Jackson says that Harvard’s proposed renovation as designed is “the least cost that meets the needs of the town for now and the future.” He added, “I think if the people in town who are questioning the cost were in our meetings with the architect and engineers, going through the details, and seeing the standards that we have to meet for a public building, they would understand why the cost is what it is.”
