NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city will again team with Colliers International on a school project, pending approval by the School Building Committee and the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

 

The OPM Selection Committee (made up of building committee members) voted unanimously on Thursday to make Colliers the owner's project manager for the Greylock/Brayton school project. Colliers became the OPM for the award-winning $30 million Colegrove Park Elementary School when it acquired Strategic Building Solutions, the original manager, in 2015.

 

The owner's project manager will manage the entire project on behalf of the school district. This may include planning, construction and design, and oversight of contractors and subcontractors to the project on task. 

 

Colliers was one of three firms interviewed earlier this week by OPM Selection Committee members Superintendent Barbara Malkas, School Committee member Tara Jacobs and Benjamin Lamb. 

 

The finalists were rated in 10 categories by each committee member on a scale of one to 10 for each category. These included the grasp of project requirements; design approach and methodology; personnel and roles; related project and previous work; technical project management; responsiveness to committee concerns and working relationships, and relevant issues as well as references.

 

Colliers had the highest at 276 points (out of a possible 300), followed by Skanska USA Building Inc. of Springfield at 242 and Arcadis of Middletown, Conn., at 228.

 

Jacobs said the candidates were "exemplary" and that their interest in the project spoke volumes.

 

"I think all three were extremely qualified. And even though that was the case, there was still notable differences when we did our scoring, it wasn't that we were really torn on any of our responses," said Lamb. "When we looked back at them after we completed all three, we still agreed with everything that we had done, which I thought was important to sort of reflect on."

 

He also noted that none of the interviewers had been involved with the Colegrove project and thought it good to have that disconnect from the prior process.

 

Building Committee member Richard Alcombright asked for information on how well each candidate scored on the equity and community outreach, both issues that Jacobs brought up as being significant during discussions on the finalists. 

 

All three, it was noted, scored closely with each other. 

 

"I was wondering if there was a great disparity there," he said. "It didn't seem to have, it seems like they all kind of had a pretty good reaction to that level of questioning so that's good."

 

The School Committee last June authorized $300,000 in school choice funds toward the feasibility study, the next step in the process. The MSBA will pay for part of the study once a reimbursement percentage is set. School districts are required to fully fund projects up front. 

 

Business Administrator Nancy Rauscher said MSBA will provide a base contract that the committee will review and customize if needed by the next School Building Committee meeting on Feb. 15, after which it will be forwarded to the MSBA in March before it can be finalized.