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Community Center process limps along
By Chris Kotterman
The community center saga continues to unfold on a very public stage, as last month’s outrage and calls for City Council oversight of the project have given way to more calm but intense deliberation among council members as the city considers how to proceed.
The Council devoted its entire meeting on March 22 to a discussion with project architect Lawrence Abell and his management team, covering in exhausting detail exactly what the process for daily decision making is and why the Council feels it was left out of the loop. Abell was quick to point out that oversight of the project has been thorough.
"We have a pretty extensive management program here," Abell said. "Every day I’m aware of what’s going on. This entire team works very well together."
Abell added that even in its current form, the management of the project is rigorous.
There’s probably more management activities in this project than there are on others that I’m involved with that cost more money," he said.
During his presentation to the Council, Doug Norway, project manager for Lawrence Abell & Associates, explained the management process.
Norway or another representative from the architect, Venita George, Takoma Park’s liaison for the project, and the project management consultant hired by the city meet with the contractor roughly every two weeks at the construction site to discuss progress and current issues.
In addition, photos of the site are emailed weekly to George, the architects, and project consultants. Any problems are communicated back to the contractor. Throughout the process, the architect serves as the central point of communication between the contractor and the city.
However, while city staff may be receiving information regularly, some council members were not satisfied with the amount of information reaching them.
"The Council hasn’t done everything we need to do as owners," said Ward 3 Council member Bruce Williams. The Council, he said, needs to "reassert our sense of ownership of the process." Williams, a contractor by trade, then volunteered to be a point of contact on the council to ensure that the same information going to city staff comes to the Council as well.
Only Ward 4 Council member Terry Seamens objected, saying that he feels city staff should be reporting to Council regularly.
Ward 5 Council member Marc Elrich agreed that more information was needed, but was wary of getting too deeply involved in management.
"I think we’ve got to have some common sense between what [the architects and contractors] are doing as professionals, and things that impact the feel and the sense of the project," he said. "I don’t want to debate the diameter of pipes and the number of millimeters’ thickness of a piece of sheet metal."
Council will also add a report on community center progress as a standing agenda item at every meeting.
Conversation also included changes to the project’s costs. To date, Normal said, there have been 5 approved change orders, totaling about $144,000. City Manager Richard M. Finn, perhaps sensing the Council’s concern, said that all the changes are within budget.
"All the changes are within the budget," Finn said. "You have not at any time exceeded the budget."
Abell said that his firm reviews every potential change order in extreme detail, and approves them one at a time. He also said that there are a potential of 26 change orders, although some will not impact the cost of the project at all.
The Council and residents in attendance also got their first look at the interior of the building, which will include new police department offices on the lower level, including space for new holding cells in the future, and a multi-purpose room, multiple conference and meeting rooms, a pottery room, and four computer classrooms on the ground level. City staff offices will be relocated to the third level.
Seamens found fault with the amount of space devoted to city administrative offices compared to community space. By his own calculations based on the plans, Seamens said that he estimated square footage devoted to city office space will increase by 60 percent.
"No one authorized the City Manager to expand the size of city offices," he said. He went on to ask "What types of stipulations are on the money we get from the county and state?" He said that his main concern is whether or not the city could eventually be compelled to pay back money not used to finance a majority of community space.
Despite these concerns, the Council felt comfortable enough to authorize $690,000 from an expected $750,000 county grant that will go toward what are essentially "finishing touches" such as paint, carpet, and light fixtures.
Abell said he felt like the project will go much more smoothly from now on, because many of the early problems were created by deadlines set by the county and state to get started.
"During the design phase we had as long as we wanted," he said. "Then a lot of decisions had to be made very quickly or there wouldn’t be a project."
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