Mt. Vernon Register-News

Local

January 26, 2012

Committee meets with construction managers

By RORYE O’CONNOR rorye.oconnor@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — — The City Schools District 80 Building Committee met Wednesday with two prospective construction managers.

Representatives from Holland Construction and Lipps Construction made presentations concerning how their respective companies would handle the construction and renovation projects at Zadok Casey Middle School.

Mike Bevis, Vice President of Lipps Construction, said his company has handled projects at several District 80 buildings in the past, including the gymnasium at J.L. Buford Intermediate Center, the elevators at Casey Middle School and the construction of the Primary Center.

He said his company’s focus is safety, even if it means the project won’t be done on time.

District 80 Assistant Superintendent Tyler Brown said the project schedule is currently about six months behind.

Bruce Holland, the founder of Holland Construction, said 95 percent of the company’s work comes from repeat clients.

Holland Construction Services employee Greg Getty said the company has a strong history of school construction projects and does a background check on every employee to make sure they are trustworthy to be around children.

He said the company’s goal would be to accomplish as many of the district’s construction goals while staying within the $5 million budget.

“We’re very accustomed to working with school districts with fixed budgets,” he said.

The consultations with the construction companies came about after the board decided to seek proposals for construction manager.

District 80 Superintendent Mike Green said on Jan. 11 that the renovation and expansion of Casey Middle School and J.L. Buford Intermediate Center was moving forward.

The board at its most recent full board meeting approved a motion to go out for proposals from companies interested in being the construction manager of the projects.

Board member Craig Hedin said the construction manager prepares scope of work documents for construction projects. He said a District 80 attorney created a matrix to assign duties to FGM Architects, the district’s architect of record and the project manager, and the construction manager to insure nothing is duplicated or left out of the process.

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