Mount Greylock Chooses Turner as Construction Manager

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The Mount Greylock School Committee on Thursday voted to enter into negotiations with New York City's Turner Construction to be the construction manager at risk on the district's planned addition/renovation project.
 
Turner interviewed on Thursday along with Gilbane Development of Philadelphia and Shawmut Design and Construction of West Springfield with a CM selection subcommittee, which voted to recommend Turner to the School Building Committee.
 
In turn, the School Building Committee voted to recommend Turner to the School Committee with Gilbane as a second choice.
 
"All three firms made our choice difficult today," School Building Committee Chairman Mark Schiek said. "They were all well done and did a thorough job in the presentation. ... That says a lot about the three firms that came out here."
 
The selection subcommittee included Schiek, Superintendent Douglas Dias, School Building Committee member Robert Ericson, architect Dan Colli of Design Partnership and owner's project manager Trip Elmore of Dore & Whittier.
 
"For the record, I had scored the [written] proposals with Gilbane first, Turner second and Shawmut third," Elmore said. "Gilbane's presentation was exceptionally done.
 
"It turned for me when I saw the team [that would be working on the project] hadn't worked together before. The team was coming from so many different places. I was concerned it wasn't a cohesive team whereas Turner's folks basically taken right off the job.
 
"It's a minor thing but these decisions are made on minor bits of information."
 
This story is developing.
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Williamstown Housing Trust Commits $80K to Support Cable Mills Phase 3

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The board of the town's Affordable Housing Trust last week agreed in principle to commit $80,000 more in town funds to support the third phase of the Cable Mills housing development on Water Street.
 
Developer David Traggorth asked the trustees to make the contribution from its coffers to help unlock an additional $5.4 million in state funds for the planned 54-unit apartment building at the south end of the Cable Mills site.
 
In 2022, the annual town meeting approved a $400,000 outlay of Community Preservation Act funds to support the third and final phase of the Cable Mills development, which started with the restoration and conversion of the former mill building and continued with the construction of condominiums along the Green River.
 
The town's CPA funds are part of the funding mix because 28 of Phase 3's 54 units (52 percent) will be designated as affordable housing for residents making up to 60 percent of the area median income.
 
Traggorth said he hopes by this August to have shovels in the ground on Phase 3, which has been delayed due to spiraling construction costs that forced the developer to redo the financial plan for the apartment building.
 
He showed the trustees a spreadsheet that demonstrated how the overall cost of the project has gone up by about $6 million from the 2022 budget.
 
"Most of that is driven by construction costs," he said. "Some of it is caused by the increase in interest rates. If it costs us more to borrow, we can't borrow as much."
 
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