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Date: 12/17/2015
WILBRAHAM – The town plans to open bids to hire a general contractor for construction of its $8 million new police station project on Jan. 13, 2016.
Police Station Building Committee Chair Roger Fontaine told Reminder Publications the bid would likely be awarded by the middle of January. An advertisement for the position was posted on the town’s website on Nov. 25.
“The time frame for construction to begin is somewhat contingent on the weather,” he added. “We have basically a 12-month plan. We’re looking if [construction begins] Feb. 1, [2016]. We’re probably looking at February to March 1, 2017 for occupancy.”
Fontaine said there are 12 to 15 general contractors involved in the bidding process currently.
“It could be more it; it could be less,” he noted. “I’ve seen 12 to 15 names pulling drawings. That doesn’t mean they’re all going to submit bids, but there seems to be a real good interest. I’m very optimistic about that and the plan is that we would be able to select from the bids and be in budget.”
He added the committee included several alternatives in case bids come in costing more than the project’s budget.
“Maybe we eliminate the car port or something at that point in time,” Fontaine said. “We put that in as an alternative bid so it gives us a little flexibility to be under the budget. What we did is on the sally port – we had two sally ports – in other words two drive-ins for prisoner acceptance and what we did is to make one of those an alternate.”
The building plans are exactly the same as the ones brought forward to residents during the 2015 Annual Town Meeting and 2015 Town Election, who approved a $4.2 million debt exclusion override for the project, he noted.
“One of the committee’s concerns were as you listen to MGM in Springfield looking at a 10 percent increase in cost, we were concerned that numbers were increasing because of inflation,” he added. “So we took a lot of extra time and painstaking detail to look at what we put in there, [which is] basic bare bones design. We didn’t put a lot of extras in there so that we were able to stay within the budget. Confidence is high at this point in time.”
Part of the project’s cost was for the purchase of a building site at 2780 Boston Road, nearby the recently renovated fire station, which was bought for $400,000 from the property’s previous owner, Helen Moore, Fontaine said.
He added the need for the project is a top priority for the town. The current facility was built in 1904.
“It’s enlightening how vastly different the world is today relative to policing,” Fontaine said. “When you look at what our folks have been accustomed to – living in that building on Main Street for the last 50 to 100 years – a new facility would be state-of-the-art, within reason [and] budgetary constraint, but meet all the accommodations and requirements for the next 50 years.”