HomeMy WebLinkAbout1969-03-24-PBC-rpt.pdf REPORT OF PERMANENT BUILDING COMMITTEE
March 24, 1969
The Permanent Building Committee tabled Article 13 last week and
informed the Town Meeting that it would be brought before the Town
Meeting tonight. We are not requesting action on this Article
tonight and we want to give the Town Meeting our reasons.
We received only one general contract bid on this school project at
a price that would require an appropriation of $5,455,000.00 to
construct the proposed new junior high school. This is approximately
$850,000.00 above our estimate.
The Committee's first reaction was that this bid, because of lack of
competition, might not represent a competitive price and should be
rejected. There were several unusual factors operating during the
bidding period, factors which might not affect the bidding if we were
to put this job out for bid again promptly. There is a good chance
that more general contractors would be in a position to bid, and
would bid, in the next month or two. In fact, we have verbal state-
ments from at least two additional general contractors that they would
bid on the job.
On the other hand, there are indications that in fact this is not an
inflated price and that we could not expect to do substantially better
on a rebidding, even if we had several general contractors competing
against each other. The present chaotic situation in the building
industry is without precedent. Our architects called more than thirty
general contractors during the bidding period in order to generate
interest and encourage bidding. The response was totally negative.
Many contractors indicated that they had all the work that they could
possible handle, and were not looking for any more. Others are no
longer bidding on public construction because of the conditions and
restrictions imposed by the public bidding law. Some are awaiting
the outcome of the labor negotiations coming up in May in the carpentry
and masonry trades because they fear the labor settlement in those
trades will result in a substantial increase in costs. Other factors
operating to create uncertainty are the continuing cost escalation,
thought to be as high as 1% per month by some experts, and the continu-
ing tightening of the money market. And it is clear that these condi-
tions will not ease sigAificantly in the near future.
The Committee therefore wants as much time as possible to evaluate
the bid which we have, to determine whether or not it represents a
realistic price for this school. We can make this decision better on
March 31 because by then we will know the results of the bidding on
four other school jobs in the immediate area.
At that time, if it is our opinion that this bid is completely un-
realistic, we will recommend that it be rejected, and that our Committee
-2-
be authorized to rebid the job, so that we can come before a June
Town Meeting for construction funds. In order to do this, our
Committee will need an appropriation of about $10,000.00 to carry
us through the rebidding process.
On the other hand, if it appears to us that we could not reasonably
expect a better price on a rebid, we will present Article 13 to the
Town Meeting with a requested appropriation of $5,455,000.00. As
part of our presentation we will present as much information as we
can assemble in the coming week on present and future costs and the
effect on the educational program of possible alternatives to our
proposal. The Town Meeting will have the opportunity through a
series of proposed amendments to our motion to decide whether to
build this school now or to direct us to explore these other alterna-
tives and report back to a future Town Meeting.
We assume that the Town Meeting will continue at least until March 31,
but if it should appear that the business will be finished before
that date, we will ask the Town Meeting to recess until then. Further-
more, if the Town Meeting continues beyond that date, we will ask the
Town Meeting to give us one full night to present Article 13.
(Advwv-iko /C7
Chairman