After a Tuesday morning meeting with the general contractor, a city utility storage and maintenance building may start to see some construction work in the near future.
“I think we have a tentative schedule,” John Van Gorden, Pittsburg interim city manager, said.
City officials met with General Services Corporation of Oswego, the general contractor for the new building located at 13th and Walnut to discuss previous delays and attempt to establish a new construction timeline.
“The schedule is being reviewed by the architect and we are trying to squeeze it down,” said Pittsburg Director of Public Utilities, John Bailey. “We’ll see what the final schedule will be.”
Tentatively, crews will start construction operations back up around Sept. 13.
The project, with a pricetag of approximately $550,000, has suffered delays from the beginning, mainly from communication issues between General Services Corporation and the building manufacturer, Mesco Building Solutions of Irving, Texas.
Those issues have ranged from the prefabricated building construction to communication problems between General Services and Mesco regarding that prefab building.
“There’s always issues with building projects,” Bailey said. “This has been a little more difficult with timeliness because I think the work could have done a little more diligently and aggressively than it has been.”
The project is partially being funded with ARRA (stimulus) funding. That funding is reimbursing the city 50 percent of the contract total. The original completion date for the project was set in Oct. 2010, but Bailey said that the city may be giving the contractor additional time on the contract because of issues.
“He does have some rain days and we gave him two weeks to take into account the communications between the parties involved,” Bailey said. “That was suggested and I think we will accept that.”
In addition to addressing communication issues, Bailey said that the meeting Tuesday also discussed drainage solutions for the property as well as building parts arriving from the Mesco.
“They have been put on order and they are coming from the original supplier so there should not be any warranty issues, which is good,” Bailey said.
Bailey said that General Services is optimistic about completing the already delayed project.
During the meeting Tuesday, General Services indicated that the issue was not with the city, but with the building contractor.
“We asked if he had any problems with the city and he said ‘no,’” Bailey said. “I think the issues have been between the contractor and the building supplier.”
He said that there should be a finalized construction schedule next week with work restarting thereafter.
“We’d like to have it done by Thanksgiving, but my suspicion is that it won’t be complete until Christmas,” Bailey said.
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City of Pittsburg: http://www.pittks.org
Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140
