New Key West City Hall Construction Begins On Time

 

By Pru Sowers

 

In a town where the word “deadline” is often ignored by many contractors and politicians, the company in charge of turning the former Glynn Archer Elementary School into a new, state of the art Key West City Hall showed up for work as promised on Feb. 9.

 

 

Burke Construction Group was on site Monday to begin work on the $14,997,500 project, which is projected to be completed March 1, 2016.

 

 

“The contractor is on site and doing his initial laydown, getting ready with equipment and places to store equipment,” said Key West City Manager Jim Scholl.

 

 

Debris dumpsters were delivered to the site at the corner of White and United streets on Feb. 10 and interior demolition was slated to begin shortly thereafter. The first step will be to remove usable lumber from the walls and doorframes currently separating the interior space into classrooms.

 

 

“The wood will be repurposed,” Scholl said. “There’s a lot of good lumber in there.”

 

 

Reusing lumber is one way Burke Construction Group will attempt to lower the almost $15 million price tag. The project came in approximately $1.8 million over initial budget estimates, giving city commissioners a classic case of sticker shock. Although the city has money in its capital fund to cover the budget increase, commissioners told Burke Construction, Scholl and the engineering department to find ways to bring that down.

 

 

Despite not being the lowest of the three construction companies that bid on the project, city planning and engineering staff and project architect Bert Bender had recommended commissioners award the contract to Biltmore Construction. They said Biltmore’s $15.2 million bid provided more value to the city because of the company’s experience and qualifications.

 

 

However, four of the seven commission members balked when they saw that even the lowest bid was $1.8 million more than Bender had estimated. They then voted in November to go against staff recommendations and hire the lowest bidder to build the new city hall.

 

 

After the vote, Biltmore sent a letter to commissioners saying the company didn’t believe the city adhered to the legal bidding process. However, Biltmore Vice President Travis Parker said the company did not want to sue the city and even offered to help officials better understand “due diligence, ethics and proper procedure” going forward.

 

 

Scholl said the official ground breaking ceremony will be held at the site at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

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