Mount Greylock School District Back to 'Design-Bid-Build' Method for Field Project
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School District has given up on a plan to change the method it uses to build a new athletic field.
But it is moving forward with the project and now planning to add a six-lane track around a new athletic field.
And now committee members are encouraging the public to once again weigh in on the plan to build a new synthetic, multisport field on the campus.
Last week, the School Committee heard that the "design-build" method it decided to pursue in November likely would not be allowed under Massachusetts General Law.
The district had hoped to avoid the more costly "design-bid-build" process, which entails using two different architectural firms.
Dozens of articles on construction firms' websites discuss the difference between design-build and design-bid-build. One on the website of Colorado firm Symmetry Builders summarizes it this way: "Overall, the primary difference when considering design-build vs. design-bid-build delivery methods is design-build includes both design and construction under one contract vs. design-bid-build includes separate contracts to the developer. ... A design-build delivery requires a high level of trust and expertise from all parties to eliminate the stigmas [like a lack of competitive bidding]."
District officials reasoned that it could use the less costly design-build instead of the standard construction method for municipal projects in Massachusetts because the athletic fields will be financed using proceeds of a $5 million capital gift from Williams College.
District officials felt that although the gift was from the college to taxpayers and although it had been used to fund projects (like a new central office or ADA and Title IX improvements to existing playing fields) that otherwise would have been funded through local taxes, the proceeds of the gift itself are not tax dollars.
The Office of the Inspector General in Boston disagreed.
"The IGO responded with some skepticism that they would view moving forward with a project without following design-bid-build," district Business Manager Joe Bergeron told the committee on Thursday. "Our counsel tried a number of different ways and angles to make our intention clear and communicate the difficulties we've found with design-bid-build over the years with respect to this project.
"The IGO was not terribly receptive."
Bergeron said the district's legal counsel recommended it revert back to the design-bid-build technique.
He obtained a quote from the district's longtime architect, Perkins Eastman, for a new design for a field encircled by a track roughly in the place where it has been discussed in the past, to the west of the school, for $165,000, including engineering and permitting work.
Bergeron said the savings realized from co-locating the track and field will outweigh the premium the district would pay for design-bid-build versus design-build.
Past designs for a turf field that the district has already paid for included a track at a separate location on campus, and they do not take into account a small structure built between the admin building and the middle-high school since the fields planning began a few years ago.
In the past, a track has been talked about but included as "add alternate" in previous artificial turf field projects that have gone out to bid.
Carolyn Greene, who serves on the School Committee's Finance Subcommittee, noted that the district has heard significant public input about the need for a track on campus to serve one of the middle-high school's most popular athletic programs. Currently, the Mount Greylock track and field team practices on makeshift venues and "hosts" meets at Williams College when its track is available.
"As [Bergeron] has talked about, if you're going to do a synthetic turf field and track, it's best to do them in the same place," Greene said. "In any future bid documents, if we put a synthetic turf field out to bid, we would probably want the track and field in the same location for efficiency and cost."
The committee did not hold any votes on Thursday to award a new design contract to Perkins Eastman, but referred the question back to the Finance Subcommittee in hopes it could develop a proposal for the full committee's January meeting.
Steven Miller, who also serves on the Finance Subcommittee, and Greene, each said the panel could entertain comments from members of this public at its Thursday 4 p.m. meeting.
"This is why we didn't put a vote on the agenda [for last Thursday]," Greene said. "Partly for the committee to think about how it wants to go forward and partly for the community to have an opportunity to give feedback to the committee.
"What I would advise against is another conversation about a synthetic field versus grass. We know a lot about both. If there is new information — and we have gotten some new information about the issues with synthetic turf —- but if there is new information about the value of doing a different project, that is, of course, always welcome.
"I would caution people to know we have already collected a lot of information, and it would be good not to repeat that process."
Tags: MGRS, turf field,
