Westport school groundbreaking is October 8

Latest bidding goes better, excavation to start October 15

Architect’s rendering of the new Westport grade 5-12 school.

Posted Thursday, September 26, 2019 7:18 am

By Bruce Burdett

WESTPORT — The first bits of work on Westport’s new grade 5-12 school have begun and the town will celebrate the occasion with a groundbreaking ceremony at the Old Colony Road site and 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 8. All are welcome.

Recently, a fence was completed around the work location perimeter, most of it where the demolished middle school once stood, said Robert Gilchrist of Agostini Bacon Company, the job’s Construction Manager At Risk (hired to assure that the school is completed without additional cost surprises).

Work trailers have arrived, he told the School Building Committee last week, and Eversource will install a conduit carrying power and communication lines across and beneath Old County Road any day now. It should take a day and involve closing one lane at a time.

Target date to start actual construction is Tuesday, Oct. 15, Mr. Gilchrist said. That’s the day they intend to begin excavation for the footings — all foundation work should be complete by the end of December.

With that done, steel work will start and run through the winter. Steelworkers, Mr. Gilchrist said, “don’t care how cold it is” or whether it’s snowing. The project remains on pace to open in time for the start of school in September 2021.

Bidding goes better

There was also “some excellent news” to report regarding bids and costs, the committee was told, certainly better news than dominated agendas months ago when a first attempt at bidding came in $10 million over budget.

In bidding for the first phase of the project, three “major trades” — site work, concrete and structural steel — came in a combined $650,000 under budget, the committee learned.

• Concrete work (footings, foundation) drew multiple bids for work that had been estimated to cost $3.2 million. Agostini proved to be the winning bidder with a bid at the $3.2 million amount that it had projected — other bids ranged from just above that number to $4.5 million.

• Mr. Gilchrist said that Agostini, as construction manager, submitted its bid 24 hours before the work was put out to bid so that it would not have the advantage of seeing what competitors proposed.

• Structural steel … “We started with seven bidders,” Mr. Gilchrist said, a couple of which backed out due to other jobs. The budget was $4.5 million and the low bid came in at $4.62 million. Wining bidder was Structure SBL, a Canadian firm.

• Site work … The slight overage in steel work was more than offset by bids for site work. Budgeted at $8.6 million, the lowest bids came in just under $8 million. The winner was Catalano Construction, a Rhode Island company.

That good news was offset somewhat by word that $65,000 needs to be transferred from the contingency account to cover possible overages in another account.

Playing field lights

A local youth league has asked that it be given the former middle school’s playing field lights and poles that will otherwise be knocked down to make way for the new school.

The league (which was not identified) has said it can truck the lights away to a new location but does not have the funds to pay for them or for having them taken down.

One member said the committee should know first the cost of taking the lights down carefully rather than simply knocking them down. He said he wants to be sure that that expense isn’t greater than the actual value of the lights.

Mr. Catalano estimated that the lights and poles could still be worth around $30,000 and that the cost of taking them down carefully would be a fraction of that.

The new middle/high school’s total cost is set at $97 million, a figure that cannot change since roughly 40 percent of the cost is to be reimbursed by the Massachusetts School Building Authority.

Millis school project on time, under budget

Construction, as of mid-August, underway at Millis' new elementary school.  The old school, where students are attending this year, is in the background. [Contributed Photo/Elementary School Building Committee]

MILLIS – Students and staff heading back to class at Clyde Brown Elementary School Wednesday will see that construction on the site’s new school did not take a summer break.

“The site work is done, the foundations are all done,” Elementary School Building Committee Vice Chairwoman Diane Jurmain said. “We are working toward closing up the building, so we can work in the winter, making it weather-tight.”

Town Meeting approved the $51.76 million new elementary school in November 2017, to replace the aging Brown Elementary. Students will attend classes in the old building this year, which is on the same property as the new building, then move into the finished product next fall.

“The kids will be in there a year from now, just about,” Jurmain said.

Structural walls are all up, she said, and contractors poured the concrete for the new school’s gymnasium floor last week. Roof work is underway, and exterior masonry work should start this week.

The construction is a Massachusetts School Building Authority-approved project, which means Millis will see about $20.95 million in state funding to get it done.

So far, Jurmain said, the project is on time and under budget.

“We aren’t always able to say these things,” Jurmain said. “It’s a collaborative effort, and we have a really good team working on this. ... If we can end up under budget, we’ll be thrilled.”

The actual building could be complete as soon as July, Jurmain said, then road and sidewalk work will begin, and the old school will be demolished. An official opening is scheduled for the Monday after Labor Day 2019.

This school year, Jurmain said, contractors expect to make the building weather-tight for the winter by November. The walls, roof, and exterior masonry should be finished, and the majority of the remaining work will be inside.

That’s less distracting for students, Jurmain said.

“When we first started the school work, the kids were probably paying attention (to the big construction equipment),” she said. “Once the building’s closed up, there won’t be so much to see.”

The construction site is completely separate and fenced off from the current school site, however, she said, and deliveries and certain types of work have been scheduled outside of school hours or around events. That lessens the impact on students and staff in class.

For residents, the biggest change will be a new traffic pattern this school year.

There’s a new traffic light and left turn lane on Rte. 109, and the two roads flanking the old school – Park Road and Park Street – have changed purpose slightly.

Park Road is now two-way, and the only way to head west on Rte. 109 when leaving the school. Cars leaving via Park Street will only be able to take a right and go east.

School begins district-wide Wednesday. To see a graphic of the traffic changes and keep up-to-date on the project, head to the Millis School Project Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/millisschoolproject.

See original article at Milforddailynews.com

Plymouth South High School Montage

Plymouth South High School Building Montage 2017/2018

Plymouth South High School Building Montage
2017/2018

Push is on to deliver Beverly Middle School on time

Salem News - Ken Yuszkus/Staff photo - Mayor Michael Cahill, left, walks with Robert Gilchrist, the contractor's project site manager, during a tour Friday of the construction site for the new Beverly Middle School.  The school is expected to open in the fall of 2018.

BEVERLY — It still has a long way to go before its doors open to students and staff in the fall of 2018, but the new Beverly Middle School is taking shape.

Structural steel is going up, and Agostini Bacon, the general contractor, plans to power through the winter months to keep the project on schedule, according to Robert Gilchrist, the company's project site manager.

At $109 million, the new school will accommodate grades 5-8, and will include a new auditorium, gymnasium and "academic neighborhoods" for students with project space, plus outdoor dining and an amphitheater. It is being built on the site of the former Memorial Building on Cabot Street.

Read more at Salem News

Scituate Middle School in High Profile Oct. 2016 Edition

Scituate Middle School

Scituate, MA – Bacon Agostini Construction Joint Venture of East Providence, R.I., recently won the bid for the Scituate Middle School project. As the general contractor, Bacon Agostini joins owner’s project manager, Daedalus Projects Inc., and Architect, Dore & Whittier Architects, Inc. to manage the completion of this middle school in time for the start of the 2017-2018 school year.

Read more at High Profile

Our feature in Construction-Today on the Plymouth South High School Project

Built by Agostini and Bacon Construction, the new high school in Plymouth, Mass., is a huge undertaking for these seasoned firms.

By Angela Forsyth

Coming soon to Plymouth, Mass., is a newly constructed $90.3 million school – a big budget for a big, 248,000-square-foot high school. Although the size and cost are monumental, the job isn’t too big for Agostini Construction and Bacon Construction, two companies run by one family. Plymouth South High School is a Bacon Agostini Construction joint venture that broke ground in July 2015 and will be completed by May 2017.

Read more at Construction-Today.com