Following last week’s receipt of contractors’ bids on the proposed renovation of Town Hall, Woodstock supervisor Jeremy Wilber and councilman Bill McKenna, along with the project’s architect and engineer, plan to evaluate the low bids in a March 15 meeting with representatives of the companies that submitted them.
The purpose of the meeting is to review the background, qualifications, and references of the low bidders, who separately are seeking contracts for five elements of construction: general construction; mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work; and the drilling of wells for a geothermal heating and cooling system. In awarding contracts, said Wilber in a March 13 interview, the town will strive to avert misunderstandings that could subsequently lead to change-work orders and resulting cost overruns.
According to a preliminary calculation, the low bids total $1,082,394, or nearly $370,000 less than the $1.45 million bonding limit that voters authorized in a December 2007 referendum. The bonding authority remains in effect because the current renovation plan substantially conforms with the original plan, which voters approved in the referendum.
As a result of promising recent developments including the bids received last week, however, the town’s borrowing needs are expected to fall comfortably short of the $1.45 million bonding threshold.
Capital reserve fund
Wilber disclosed in the interview that $365,000 in a building capital reserve fund can be applied to the cost of the renovation, thus reducing the amount to be borrowed through bonding. Consequently, the availability of the reserve fund, coupled with the favorability of the bids on the table, may rescue a project that was scuttled in 2008 when a first round of bidding yielded a budget-busting cost of $2 million.
In addition to Wilber and McKenna, who has served as the Town Board’s liaison for the project, architect Robert Young and officials of Novus Engineering are expected to attend the March 15 meeting, which is scheduled to take place at the supervisor’s office. While the duration of the process of choosing contractors for the project is unknown at this time, Wilber said that he did not expect it to take more than a month.
All of the low-bidding companies are from New York State. The firms, their locations, and the amounts of their bids are as follows. General construction: Nurzia Construction Corp., Fishkill, $466,244; mechanical construction: DJ Heating and Air Conditioning, Rhinebeck, $285,500; electrical construction: Pat Kearns Electric, Carmel, $162,250; plumbing construction: Dutchess Mechanical Inc., Hopewell Junction, $87,400; and well drilling: Barney and Sons Well Drilling, Laurens, $81,000.
Worst-case scenario
For the edification of local taxpayers, Wilber outlined a hypothetical worst-case scenario, prepared by the town’s bonding consultants, in which the $365,000 reserve fund did not exist and the town had to borrow the maximum $1.45 million, paying interest at an annual rate of 4.25 percent for 20 years.
The supervisor emphasized that the scenario was hypothetical and at odds with actual current conditions; for example, the building capital reserve fund does exist and lower interest rates are probably available. Nevertheless, under the conditions of the scenario, he said, the annual cost to the town for debt service would be $111,625, or slightly less than 10 cents per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value, yielding a tax increase of just under $20 for the owner of a property assessed at $200,000.
Town Hall, at 76 Tinker Street, houses the offices of the municipal Police and Emergency Dispatch Departments and the justice court in ground-floor quarters that have been deemed cramped and unsafe. In recent years the town has explored various options, including a renovation of the two-story building that would improve working conditions for the employees; selling the 75-year-old edifice; and relocating the three departments, possibly along with other divisions of the town government, to a new or refurbished building.
Town Hall’s ground floor, which contains 9,000 square feet of space, includes a spacious main room that is used by community groups including Performing Arts of Woodstock, which presents theatrical productions. The renovation calls for the justice court to expand into that space. Most of the proposed renovation would involve the ground floor. The project’s specifications include work on the 2,000-square-foot second floor, which is not currently in use, but that work may be deferred.
After years of fits and starts, it appears likely that the current renovation plan will proceed. “The Town Board is committed to moving forward, contingent on the bids’ coming in below the (authorized) price tag, which they did,” said McKenna in a recent interview. Citing the board’s decision last year to put the project out to bid, the councilman added, “We weren’t just testing the waters, at least according to my understanding. We are under a moral obligation to follow through.”
Wilber, who took office at the beginning of the year, agreed. “I was quite committed to (renovating) Town Hall during the campaign; quite unequivocal. In the dialogue that I have had with the public, I have found little resistance to this way of solving the space problem in the building.”++
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