High School Renovation Project

The MHS Project Management Advisory Committee met last night to review the status of the Milford High School renovation project.

Schedule

Leighton White is making excellent progress on the field work. The weather has been favorable, and the on-site materials have been relatively easy to work with. Everything seems to be tracking on schedule to this point. They are going to go as long as they can before the weather turns against them. They expect to have most of the significant site work done before winter. A couple of big items that will hold until the spring are the top surface on the track and the sod for the fields. One item that might get done this fall or it might wait for the spring is the rough surface underlayment for the track. This will depend on the weather.

Bleachers

The committee reviewed the bids that came in for bleachers. We had long discussions on the pros and cons of the various alternatives, but in the end, we decided to recommend to the School Board that we purchase the seven-year-old used bleachers that came from Adelphi University that are currently being stored in New Jersey. They are available from Seating Solutions. The company is headquartered in Commack, NY, but the bleachers are being stored in Newark, NJ.

As of now, the configuration will consist of seating for roughly 1,000 people on one side only with no visitors side. This is not a final decision, but based on cost issues, it seems like it is the right thing to do. Once we have a better handle on the overall costs for the project, we will revisit this since the general consensus is that breaking up the bleachers into a home and a visitors side is a better alternative.

We have $210k in the budget for bleachers and press box, and this alternative will be about $179k. This savings will help to make up some of the overages that we have seen elsewhere.

Fencing

We received three bids for fencing, and the committee voted to recommend to the School Board that the work be awarded to the low bidder for $47,525. Penney Fence from Londonderry was the low bidder, but I did not find a web site for them.

The fencing budget was $40k, so we are over budget in this area. There were some significant changes to the plan recently where the state environmental review required us to add more fencing around the detention pond and a 12 foot swing gate into the area.

Change Orders

The committee approved two change orders.

1. The water line going down West street is on the west side of the road instead of the east side of the road as shown on the town plans. Leighton White now has to cut across the road to tie into the main to feed the irrigation system. This extra work is going to cost $5,991.

2. The School District decided that we need to increase the size of the manhole access cover to the below ground sprinkler system shut-offs. The old design was a 32" circular egress and the new design is a 36" square opening. The cost for this change is $1,627.

Engineering Oversight

We are not going to hire a clerk of the works for the project (to avoid a $54k cost), and try to seek alternative less expensive options to achieve the same results. Mostly this will consist of Mike Trojano and Bill Cooper spending more time overseeing the project at no added cost, but their knowledge is limited in some areas. We are going to hire Bill Davidson from Meridian Land Services to oversee various aspects of the field construction, including the drainage. They would be doing some of this work as part of their normal part of the process, but this is for additional work that is excluded from their normal scope. We will pay him by the hour, and we capped the expense for him at $6k for now.

Interior Work

Most of the work that will be done on the interior is out for bid now. The bids are due back next week, and the committee will meet again on October 25th to review all the bids. We expect to get bids on all the major items such as mechanical and electrical, but there may be some items that get no-bid by everyone. This is a renovation project that will be a pain for some trades to do because of the timing or access issues that have to be dealt with.

We should have an excellent overall view of the cost of the program at our next meeting. We all have our fingers crossed that the bids will come in low, and we will be able to complete the project as originally planned.