ADMINISTRATION - Robert Therres, Public Services Mgr./Asst. City Manager
Title
APPROVE CHANGE ORDER FOR MARY ANN YOUNG CENTER CONSTRUCTION PROJECT -REVISED ITEM
Background
Last week an item was included in the June 17 Council packet in regards to an upcoming change order for soil corrections for the new Mary Ann Young Center currently under construction. Since then, the City has received the results of survey work, site analysis and an engineer’s recommendation on how to proceed with the soil corrections.
The recommendation is to remove and replace the organic soils that would affect the construction of the new parking lot. This comes to 1,835 cubic yards of material that will be brought in and 917 cubic yards of material that will be taken off the site. 917 cubic yards of material will be stored on site and used to backfill the existing Senior Center after it is demolished.
The change order cost for this soil correction is $96,315.52. Combined with the existing change order of $35,691 and anticipated additional change orders for de-watering and water valve relocation, we should be able to cover these costs with the $190,500 in contingency funds for this project.
This change order is significantly less than the original “estimate” of $240,000 given by the contractor and soil testing firm when first encountered and prior to full investigation. At this time, no action is needed by the City Council.
PREVIOUS TEXT
In February of this year the City Council approved of the bid from Ebert Construction for the construction of the new Senior Center. The bid amount was $3,709,500 with a contingency of $190,500 that brought the total bid to $3,900,000.
To date, staff has approved of change orders that amount to $35,691.10. These change orders include moving top soil off the site so it is not in the way for the Blaine Festival, removing an extra sewer line to the senior center, moving some electric lines and trees, and removal of a water/oil separator tank that was not removed when the old police station was demolished.
The City also knows that we will have some additional de-watering and water line valve change orders that will be in the $30,000 range forthcoming.
The Contractors also discovered a vein of organic (poor soils) that needs to be corrected that was not picked up during the pre-construction soil borings. This vein is in the area where the Senior Center parking lot is to be located. The Contractor and Engineers are looking at several options to do these corrections but estimate that these corrections will exceed our remaining contingency amount. Early Contractor top end estimate of $240,000.
At this time, the area that needs the soil correction is not holding up our construction schedule but does need to be addressed in the next couple of weeks.
The three options for these soil corrections include:
a. Removal and replacement of the poor soils. The most common way to correct these type of issues, however because of hauling costs it will be the most expensive correction method.
b. Keeping the soils in place and using a Geo-textile Fabric over the poor soils and then build up the base with sand and gravel. Not commonly done but the project Engineers have used this several times when building roads in wet areas and is an accepted method of correction.
c. Do nothing. When tested, the soils were on the lower end of the organic soil range (meaning not bad organic soil) and the contractor is willing to leave the organic soils in place and construct the parking lot. However, the contractor will not provide the normal one-year warranty for this portion of the project.
We are still waiting for change order estimates and recommendation and will have a specific recommendation on correction method and costs associated with the corrections at the Council meeting, or if received earlier will send out separately.