ML will rebid high school project to multiple contractors
By Nick Lewandowski For The Almanac writer@thealmanac.net
Mt. Lebanon school board meeting July 18 was largely a tale of two bid structures, with discussion of whether the district's high school renovation should be rebid to a single general or multiple prime contractors. The project--for which bids came in some $15 million over budget in April--was previously bid to general prime contractors. Construction manager PJ Dick and architecture firm Celli-Flynn Brennan recommended the district make the switch to cut costs.
"The advantage with multiple primes is that the subcontracting community will generally give a school district a lower bid than they will a general prime contractor," said PJ Dick's John Taormina. "One reason is that dealing with a district they're closer to the money. They know they're going to get paid every 30 days."
PJ Dick estimated the district could save $1 million by shifting to multiple prime contractors. Celli-Flynn's estimate is even higher--architect Bill Brennan said some subcontractors mark their bids up as much as 3 to 5 percent when bidding to a single general contractor.
"But to put an exact number on it is a hard thing to do," Taormina
Board member Elaine Cappucci questioned why the possibility of such significant savings had not been brought to the board's attention before the project initially went out to bid. "With everything we've been through on the project cost savings has come up every other sentence. Why do you suddenly recommend switching?" she asked. "The project was on budget then," Brennan replied.
Using multiple prime contractors may provide cost savings, but also presents risks in terms of coordination and scheduling, officials said. Board members were quick to recall the pain associated with managing the district's elementary school renovations, which were bid to multiple prime contractors. Under multiple primes the onus would be on the district and PJ Dick to manage the project. In the words of board member Dan Remely, there would be no "single neck to choke."
"Multiple primes is going to give us a lot of headaches," said board member Susan Rose, participating by phone. "But I'm willing to handle these to help save taxpayer money."
Ultimately the majority of the board adopted Rose's position, with the exceptions of Dale Ostergaard and Faith Stipanovich. Both Ostergaard and Stipanovich expressed concerns that the risks outweighed the potential savings. "I am not convinced there is a savings that makes me want to jump on with multiple primes," Stipanovich said.
Board member Elaine Cappucci questioned why the possibility of such significant savings had not been brought to the board's attention before the project initially went out to bid. "With everything we've been through on the project cost savings has come up every other sentence. Why do you suddenly recommend switching?" she asked. "The project was on budget then," Brennan replied.
Using multiple prime contractors may provide cost savings, but also presents risks in terms of coordination and scheduling, officials said. Board members were quick to recall the pain associated with managing the district's elementary school renovations, which were bid to multiple prime contractors. Under multiple primes the onus would be on the district and PJ Dick to manage the project. In the words of board member Dan Remely, there would be no "single neck to choke."
"Multiple primes is going to give us a lot of headaches," said board member Susan Rose, participating by phone. "But I'm willing to handle these to help save taxpayer money."
Ultimately the majority of the board adopted Rose's position, with the exceptions of Dale Ostergaard and Faith Stipanovich. Both Ostergaard and Stipanovich expressed concerns that the risks outweighed the potential savings. "I am not convinced there is a savings that makes me want to jump on with multiple primes," Stipanovich said.
1 comments Rebid? : 7/20/2011
There is no need to rebid anything. All the school board needs to do is put the question of whether or not to build what they want on the ballot. It's called a "referendum". Something that most states require and allows the community to decide. Local school boards do not want you to know this because they think they know better than you. I think it's because they are power hungry.
Charles Hanson Jr.
John Taormina said it is a hard thing to do? How did Baldwin do it? Baldwin-Whitehall Cost Comparison
Are we all suffering from short-term memory loss?
ReplyDeleteAren't these the same 'experts" that convinced the board that bids on the original Act 34 approved plan would yield bids under $95,000,000?
They only missed by $15 million, I'd switch single to multiple prime contractors based on that track record - not.
- Giffen Good
"Multiple primes is going to give us a lot of headaches....But I'm willing to handle these to help save taxpayer money" said Sue Rose by phone ?
ReplyDeleteSues' term ends in November, possibly before contracts are let. I thought she was not running for re-election. Maybe I'm wrong ?
Bill Lewis
Giffen, I hate to be a critic but you are misleading people. The experts didn't miss their under $95 million "guess-timate" by $15 million.
ReplyDeleteThey missed the "if it goes over this amount" ($113.4 million) by $15 million. Which of course everyone believed would trigger a referendum vote on the project. Or so we were told!
Dick Saunders
Yes, Bill. Isn't that a hoot?
ReplyDeleteElaine
So according to Brennan if we are under budget we can lie about doing value engineering and ignore what the board told the public about saving costs and if we are over budget we need to do the value engineering and help the board keep their cost saving word. No wonder we have 197 cost saving items AFTER the bids came in high.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking Brennan didn't think he had to do the value engineering work as long as his firm collects their $6,000,000 fee.
Great question Ms. Cappucci; too bad the answer was blown-off and ignored. In the future you need to listen for administrators who don't answer questions and sit on their salary increases.
John Ewing