Title
PW/School Transportation Facility Next Steps.
Body
The Council will discuss the proposed public works/school transportation facility and how to move forward with the decision making process, whether and how to review and revise the building plan and program, and engaging the public.
Following a process that spanned three years, the town systematically looked at the condition of its existing facilities, evaluated the ability of those facilities to meet the needs of the functions they house, developed options for addressing unmet needs, and set priorities for meeting those needs.
As it did following a similar effort in the late 1990s, the Council established the construction of a new combined town and school maintenance facility as its top priority. With Allied Engineering and Grant Hays Architects, the town and school district worked together to develop a design to meet both their needs, gain efficiencies, and reduce duplication of space and effort. The Council sent that design, at an estimated cost of slightly less than $7.7 million to the voters in November 2015. The referendum failed by 113 votes in an off-year election with light turnout.
Earlier this year the town asked to have the estimates for the same project re-done, this time by Great Falls Construction, which was the general contractor on the Westbrook Public Works facility. The updated estimate, following the same building program and schematic design, allowing for other project costs, was a projected $8.5 - 8.6 million.