North Adams Officials Blast Contractor Over School Project Delays
 Colegrove Park Elementary School is not expected to be completed until October. The company is facing penalties of up to a $1,000 a day past the agreed-upon completion date of July 22. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The general contractor for the new Colegrove Park Elementary School was blasted by school officials on Monday for its ongoing delays.
"I'm disappointed and to tell you the truth I'm upset with the whole damn thing," said frequent critic and School Building Committee member Ronald Superneau.
PDS Engineering & Construction Inc. has now set a classroom completion date of Oct. 16 — three months past the "substantial completion" date in July — with the gym finished in November.
PDS principals Ronald E. Jodice and William L. Jodice blamed significant changeovers that forced crews to put off scheduled work and the city's failure to grant extra time needed to deal with those issues on the $29.7 million project.
William Jodice pointed to the partial collapse of the gym wall some months ago and the need for new structural supports inside the century-old building as some of the unexpected issues, as well as a $100,000 more in plasterwork than anticipated.
"We basically had to stop our contract work to get our changeover work done," said William Jodice, later adding, "there's been a lot of extra work we've encountered and the trades are working as fast as they can to get it done."
Ronald Jodice said the owner's project manager Strategic Building Solutions/Colliers International has been misinforming the School Building Committee on how PDS has been "floating," or shifting, the work to deal with unanticipated renovation issues. The project started out 20 days late waiting for insurance, and the owner has a 19-day float, but the general contractor wasn't getting compensated for any of that extra time.
"We're basically a $20 million contract with over a million dollars in changeovers with only three days added to the contract," Jodice said. "That's insane. Very rarely does this happen."
The committee and the city's project agents were having none of it, however.
Daniel Daisy of SBS described the scenario as "just a fabrication."
A baseline schedule had been approved and any delays have to be proven against that schedule, he said. "The problem is every activity from when you started was six months after the baseline schedule. All these problems that we're looking into now ... were scheduled to be completed long before they ever started. ...
"You don't get extra compensation for delaying yourself," he continued. "We didn't use your float. ... we pointed out the fact that you carried out way to much float at the beginning of the project so you thought it was OK to kick the can down the road."
The owner's project manager had been putting in writing its concerns over the scheduling and failure to ramp up production since last fall, Daisy said. "There is no orderly construction management at all."
Superintendent James Montepare questioned some of the examples, saying if the roof had been done on time, they wouldn't have had to waste time pumping out the basement, and if the windows had been done as scheduled, they wouldn't have had run into heating and interior issues, and wasn't that failed section of the gym wall slated to come down anyway?
"The winter was spent shoveling snow, or pumping out basements, or fixing things that were caused by the elements," he said. "It seemed just to continue on a regular basis ... there's a couple of hundred of days of float."
Ronald Jodice blamed the masonry company; Daisy said a masonry union rep had told him there were workers available that weren't called on.
Mayor Richard Alcombright acknowledged there were unforeseen conditions but didn't recall the contractor ramping up manpower to deal with them.
"It was almost like a shift of people to care of the unforeseen conditions," he said. "I have never seen night lights or weekends.
"It's almost like it's been an excuse to move these out a few days at a time."
Daisy pulled out a spreadsheet that he said showed a flat line of manpower on site.
Dorrie Brooks of Jones Whitsett Architects noted that the changeovers had been approved and funded through the contract — a contract for renovation of a very old building.
"We never contested the cost of any of that work," she said. "What we're saying is, you're getting paid for that work."
Alcombright noted that the Jodices were talking about a 40-day extension but the completion schedule is now months beyond that. He wanted confirmation that the school would be able to open by Jan. 1, because students are having their school year disrupted by being packed into a school building already suffering from space issues and will have to switch mid-year.
"We just have to be very certain of these dates and these times now," he said.
In other business, the committee was updated to the ongoing progress of the construction. Most of the masonry is complete while work roof parapets and copper flashing continues. The gym wall is mostly done and framing is up on the old Drury wall on the east side.
Windows are all in except for a section being used to deliver materials; painting, millwork, flooring, ceilings, electrical fixtures and kitchen equipment are going in. The process has been done top down, with the third floor the most completed and the ground floor requiring the most work.
The heating and air conditioning systems are being installed and rough plumbing is mostly complete with fixtures to begin being installed.
The bulk of the concrete for the front entrance and bus drop area has been poured with the playground expected to arrive next week. The elevator has been delayed a week but the shaft's exterior and roof for the main entrance are done.
A walk-through will likely take place in September after the HVAC is installed and tested. The committee will begin meeting every two weeks with the next meetings slated for Aug. 31 and Sept. 14.
Tags: Colegrove Park, Conte School, school building committee, school project,
