By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The opening of bids for construction on the new justice center for Barren County that was originally scheduled for Thursday afternoon has been postponed for a week.
That was the primary piece of news shared during Wednesday’s meeting of the local project development board.
As usual, a report from the design team kicked off the meat of the agenda, with Brian Estep stating he didn’t have much to update other than they had been working with the construction management team at Alliance Corp. to get answers to questions from potential bidders, and get a final addendum to the construction documents prepared.
Joey Nolasco, another member of the design team, concurred with that summary. He said they were excited to be getting the bids.
“Does everyone understand what an addendum is and why we’re doing this?” he asked. “I know this is our third one at this point, but sometimes I just want to make sure that the owners group understands the bidding process and why we issue addendums and all that good stuff.”
“Well, why don’t you go ahead and tell us,” said Circuit Judge John T. Alexander, who was presiding over the meeting as vice chair.
Nolasco said that during the bidding process, they take questions from potential bidders about the construction documents in the bid package.
“With Tommy’s group and our group,” he said, referring to Tommy Gumm, who is CEO of Alliance Corp., “we collect those questions, and we can have questions that come in in a myriad of different formats. And what we do is we collect all those, and they don’t become part of the contract documents until we issue a formal, written response to all questions that were submitted, and then any clarifications that we might have to the construction documents.”
Sometimes a question from a potential bidder involves a proposed substitution, where a particular product has been listed but they suggest one they believe is equal, he said.
“We can approve substitutions; we can answer questions, make clarifications,” Nolasco said. “In a pinch, if we’ve found some sort of little mistake or something that’s going to make it easier on the contractors if we answer that, we may decide to make a clarification on our own.”
Addendums such as this, he said, “modify the construction documents to the extent that all of the subcontractors that are bidding this job are held to our specifications, our construction documents and any addenda that are issued during the bidding process, so all of these addenda will become part of our construction documents.”
He added that any addendum added then takes precedence over any prior information that it changes or clarifies, “and it’s kind of our last spot to be able to clarify, make substitutions and all that sort of thing.”
“That makes sense,” Alexander said.
“Yeah, thank you very much,” said District Judge Gabe Pendleton.
Gumm then provided the construction management report, announcing that the bid opening had been rescheduled due to the number of questions they had received.
“We’ve done two addendums, but we need to do one more,” he said. “I would just say, the more clarity we have with the documents, hopefully the better prices we get from the contractors. So, this does give them an opportunity – the contractors, subcontractors – if they see something that might be a little confusing to them or they might – sometimes when have good suggestions on certain changes, we’re able to work that into the addendum, [which], as Joey said, becomes the actual legal document just as much as the original documents that were issued.”
The new time is at 2 p.m. Aug. 7 at Alliance Corp. in the lower level.
“We read all the bids out loud, and we post them up on a screen, you know,” Gumm said. “As soon as we read the last document of the last bids, we can know where we stand with the bidding process, so everybody keep your fingers crossed.”
Lynn Imaging handles the distribution of these updates, he said, and once it’s posted by hopefully around noon, every contractor that’s listed as a bidder would have it within an hour.
“We believe we have good coverage,” Gumm said. “We’ve had good interest. For instance, the three mechanical companies here in Glasgow – Green and Lyons and Knight – are all three bidding the job.”
With the bid opening on the 7th and the next regular PDB meeting at noon on the 13th, Alexander asked, “What would we expect to be able to hear at that time, if anything?”
“Well, you definitely will be able to hear where we think we are with the bidding process, as far as the total job cost. We do have to take time to interview each of the bidders – make sure they understand, make sure they have everything they’re supposed to have included. It usually takes about a week to end that. With a little luck, we might have it by the 13th,” Gumm said.
He turned to Dan Peffer, capital construction project coordinator, with the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts and asked about the sequencing of approvals for the GMP – guaranteed maximum price. Peffer asked Mark Bannister, officer for the AOC’s Department of Court Facilities to take the question.
Bannister said that once the bids are in, if they’re within budget, they’ll issue a contract, and he asked Danny Rhoades if he wanted to add to that answer.
Rhoades said the bids would be evaluated to make sure with the financial advisor that the project is within its use allowance amount.
“If we are, at that point, Tommy’ll bring those bids before the PDB, make a recommendation to move forward. The PDB will give the OK to do that, and we’ll work on the Amendment 1 to Alliance’s contract, which is basically setting the GMP cost – the guaranteed maximum price – and any other cost associated with the work of the construction of the building,” Rhoades said.
He asked Gumm how long the contractors were being required to hold the price on their bids, and Gumm said they typically use 60 days, but given more time may be necessary for the bond sale to obtain the funds, they increased the length to either 75 or 90 days.
Rhoades said that once that amendment is in place to the last contract, the financial advisor will work on the bond sale, “so we’ll have money available as we start the construction.”
The proceeds from the new bond sale will be used to pay off previous bond sales that have covered the cost of the project thus far, the new construction costs from this round of bids and other associated costs.
Also during the meeting, a disbursement of $108,992.50 was unanimously approved among the five board members present either in person or virtually. Rich Alexander, the local bar association’s representative on the board, was absent.
Gumm also reported that there is an outstanding change order regarding unsuitable soils, and they are working through it, and there are a couple of other pending items they need to work through. He said one of those relates to something in the current bid package, but it was too late to get it in this addendum, and though change orders are not ideal, he suggested it would preferable to do a change order after the bids are handled than to postpone the bid opening any further to allow for time for the item to be designed.
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