This week’s Rhino takes a look Guilford County Schools reliance on the “construction manager at risk” method of building schools, which has driven up the cost of the new Union Hill Elementary school.
It seems to me that the risks outweigh the benefits. The one benefit seems to be that construction-manager at risk frees up more work for minority contractors. Eight percent of the work on Union Hill has been freed up for minority contractors, while 23 percent has been made available to businesses owned by women.
I’m not sure if “freed up” means set aside or if the contracts have been offered. But I can’t help but wonder just how many women-owned businesses are involved in school construction, in which case the school system may be “freeing up” works for businesses that don’t exist.
The benefit of construction manager at risk is that it’s a good method for large projects, and GCS has a few of those in the hopper, courtesy of $457 million in school bonds approved by voters on May 6. But there’s a problem:
But Guilford County Schools, drawn by the lure of more minority contracting, is using construction manager at risk for projects large (the $55 million Jamestown Middle School/Ragsdale High School project), tiny (the $2.7 million Dean B. Pruette SCALES School renovation) and in between (Union Hill).
Small projects like that at the SCALES school seem an especially odd fit for construction manager at risk. Such small projects usually require little in the way of management and are usually within the expertise of any good general contractor.
…..Local contractor Doug Allen, of J.H. Allen, said he had gotten that message, although not from school board members. J.H. Allen withdrew its single-prime bid on Union Hill and then lost the negotiations for a construction manager at-risk contract on the project.
Allen said his company will continue to compete for construction manager at-risk projects if they’re the only game in town, but he considers them expensive and inefficient for school projects. He said he was shocked at the $14.4 cost estimate for Union Hill.
“There might be one in a thousand jobs for which it’s a good idea,” Allen said. “You don’t get any real benefit out of the construction manager at-risk method, except you get to select your contractor based on qualifications, with no competitive bidding.”
Someone also needs to explain why GCS Chief Operations Officer Leo Bobadilla wasn’t able to provide at least general numbers relating to Union Hill’s cost. School board member Darlene Garrett pressed him, asking
….if the cost was over or under $11 million. Bobadilla responded that he wasn’t sure, but seemed to be preparing the school board to hear a higher number. He said rising gasoline costs have increased the cost of most construction materials.
Geez. Voters just put Bobadilla in charge of $457 million, and he has trouble providing a ballpark figure? Somehow I think if voters knew more about who was in charge, they would have thought twice about approving the school bonds.
