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Mount Greylock Project Ahead of Schedule, on Budget

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock School Building Committee continues to receive good news about its timetable and cautiously optimistic reports about the bids for the $64 million addition renovation project.
 
At its February meeting, the committee heard that the project is still generally on track with its budget — with some bids coming in lower than expected and one coming in 8 percent higher than estimated.
 
The next big milestone is March 20, when the district opens bids for the trade contractors, a major piece of the overall budget.
 
But the project already has realized savings at other steps of the project — money that has been reallocated to other areas of the budget. It picked up $558,000 in September and another $82,500 in October, Mike Giso of Turner Construction reminded the committee. On the other hand, the "concrete package" for the project came in at just under $1.3 million, whereas the estimator had $1.2 million in the budget.
 
"The variance is 8 percent, $101,649," Giso said. “Obviously, that’s not ideal, but in the grand scheme of things, 10 percent is reasonable.
 
"It all balances out. When it’s all said and done, the general budget, we hope to be right on. You’re going to see some ups and downs along the way because of various trade packages."
 
He told the committee that Turner, the project’s construction manager, approached a half dozen potential contractors for the concrete and heard back from three.
 
"Their numbers were all within a couple of points of each other," he said. "To have that tight a spread of numbers, there’s confidence everyone was looking at the same job."
 
School Building Committee Chairman Mark Schiek pressed the construction manager to put the $100,000 variance in perspective.
 
"We just spent $100,000 more on concrete than we originally planned," Schiek said. "That’s coming from money we got back in our pocket from other things. Overall, we’re still within budget?"
 
"Overall, bottom line, the project is at budget," Giso said.
 
And it remains ahead of schedule, thanks in part to the relative lack of persistent snow cover this winter.
 
The district plans to move its classrooms into a new three-story academic wing during April vacation 2018, just 14 months from now. That will allow demolition of the current academic space — the one-story "doughnuts" to the west of the existing school — to begin next spring and that ground to be seeded with new grass before the frost sets in.
 
That ambitious construction schedule caught a break from Mother Nature — so far — this winter, and activity is set to ramp up quickly in the next few weeks, Giso and owners project manager Trip Elmore of Dore & Whittier Management Partners told the building committee.
 
Steel erection on the three-story academic wing could begin ahead of schedule — as early as mid-March — if the weather holds, Giso said.
 
"This is unusual," Elmore said. "Because we did the work in the fall, the steel contract was bought in December. They have come back to us and said, 'Can we start early?’ Normally, you hear, 'Can we wait a week?' This is a good thing. They’re asking to start two weeks early because we’re ready for them, and they have an opening in the schedule."
 
While the project looks to the naked eye like it is in a holding pattern, that is going to change in a hurry.
 
"We're going to go from very few to zero [workers on site] like we have today to I would expect you could see 60 people here on the first of April," Elmore said. "It’s going to be very fast. It’s not going to be gradual."
 
Committee members expressed concern about the potential for all that construction traffic crossing paths with students driving onto and off of the junior-senior high school campus.
 
Elmore and Giso said the workers generally will be on site by 7 a.m., before students generally arrive for the day, and the workers leave at 3, long after the 2:25 p.m. dismissal and before students involved in after-school activities would start leaving campus.
 
"So we want to focus on the morning and make sure the [subcontractors] won't think it's OK to come driving in at 7:20," Elmore said.
 
"Most of them will embrace starting earlier," Giso replied.
 
Elmore encouraged Principal Mary MacDonald, a member of the School Building Committee, to alert him if any traffic concerns crop up once the construction phase begins in earnest.
 
Even as the construction phase gets going, one member of the School Building Committee used the Feb. 16 meeting to express concern that the project’s designer was not responding to suggestions that could save the district money down the road.
 
Robert Ericson, who represents the Lanesborough Board of Selectmen on the SBC, opened the meeting by saying that he was "disturbed" that specific suggestions from the committee's Facilities Working Group, like reducing the size of water heaters, had not elicited responses from the project’s designers.
 
Mount Greylock's facilities supervisor, who serves with Ericson on the Facilities Working Group, and Elmore, addressed his concerns later in the meeting.
 
"I know from conversations with the architect that the architect is reviewing your comments list and incorporating various comments as they’ve been going forward," Elmore said. "Some toilets were swapped for urinals. A bathroom was swapped for an office. There are some things they can do and certain things they can’t do. There may be code elements."
 
Facilities Supervisor Jesse Wirtes in an email subsequent to the School Building Committee meeting, confirmed that the Facilities Working Group still is engaged with architect Perkins Eastman.
 
"There have been many situations that demonstrate Perkins Eastman's attentiveness, which are numerous ongoing design changes along with ongoing resolutions of concerns/questions," Wirtes wrote on Feb. 24. "Also there has been an on-going behind-the-scenes of refinements with design, project concerns and phasing function, between the owner and Trip [Elmore], Perkins Eastman, Birchwood Design Group, CES (Consulting Engineering Services), Turner and etc.  
 
"As for resolution, the Facilities Working Group had a scheduled meeting this past Wednesday with the agenda being the review of a list of concerns and design recommendations to present to Perkins Eastman. After we met, the latest design drawings were received and we as a group feel that a second review is needed, prior of sending off to [architect Dan Colli] and Trip."
 
In other business at the Feb. 16 School Building Committee meeting, MacDonald reported on the progress of the committee’s Interiors Working Group, which is nailing down design aspects of the project.
 
The biggest change from past iterations is that the design now calls for porcelain tile to be used in the building’s foyer and “artery flooring," instead of polished concrete, MacDonald said. The group found that additives in the polished concrete to give it a “non-industrial look" would be cost-prohibitive.
 
MacDonald also said that the designer had made improvements to the entrance foyer that will allow more natural light and brighten up the space.

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Williams Seeking Town Approval for New Indoor Practice Facility

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board last week gave Williams College the first approval it needs to build a 55,000-square foot indoor athletic facility on the north side of its campus.
 
Over the strenuous objection of a Southworth Street resident, the board found that the college's plan for a "multipurpose recreation center" or MRC off Stetson Road has adequate on-site parking to accommodate its use as an indoor practice facility to replace Towne Field House, which has been out of commission since last spring and was demolished this winter.
 
The college plans a pre-engineered metal that includes a 200-meter track ringing several tennis courts, storage for teams, restrooms, showers and a training room. The athletic surface also would be used as winter practice space for the school's softball and baseball teams, who, like tennis and indoor track, used to use the field house off Latham Street.
 
Since the planned structure is in the watershed of Eph's Pond, the college will be before the Conservation Commission with the project.
 
It also will be before the Zoning Board of Appeals, on Thursday, for a Development Plan Review and relief from the town bylaw limiting buildings to 35 feet in height. The new structure is designed to have a maximum height of 53 1/2 feet and an average roof height of 47 feet.
 
The additional height is needed for two reasons: to meet the NCAA requirement for clearance above center court on a competitive tennis surface (35 feet) and to include, on one side, a climbing wall, an element also lost when Towne Field House was razed.
 
The Planning Board had a few issues to resolve at its March 12 meeting. The most heavily discussed involved the parking determination for a use not listed in the town's zoning bylaws and a decision on whether access from town roads to the building site in the middle of Williams' campus was "functionally equivalent" to the access that would be required under the town's subdivision rules and regulations.
 
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