Cost continues to rise for GCC police renovation project
A Glendale Community College renovation project that was initially budgeted at just under $750,000 has ballooned to over $1.1 million by the school’s latest estimates.
College officials agreed to a third change order of $260,387 for a renovation project of the college’s police facility, which is the school’s attempt to modernize and remodel the facility and increase security.
The third change order bumped up the price tag of the renovation project to $1.17 million.
The latest increase was approved June 22 and included 20 additional items ranging from just under $2,000 to slightly more than $32,000.
A report prepared by the school’s business services office noted that the majority of change orders were due “to unforeseen field conditions and design changes.”
“The buildings are of an age where there are certain structural things that have happened with buildings over the years,” said Anthony Culpepper, the college’s executive vice president of administrative services.
“The design plan on the buildings is not updated to the point where we could have foreseen all the changes that have taken place over the last half century. So, when you get into the buildings, you’ll find asbestos and other things that structurally need to be changed. You can’t get the building properly signed off unless those changes are made,” he added.
The biggest of the adjustments was $32,248 dedicated to a revised door opening that included the demolishing of the existing framing and steel plating. There were also other increased costs, such as $24,062 set aside to revise lockers.
Culpepper added that once a set of changes were made, another concern popped up.
“Another issue was the [heating, cooling and ventilation] system was outdated and so, when they went in, they had to make some changes,” Culpepper said. “It was decided that they might as well go ahead and change the HVAC system since it’s already at a point where it needs to be changed anyhow instead of going back and changing it later.”
On Nov. 30, the school received bids from five companies looking to win the renovation project.
USTA Construction of Glendale won with a bid of $744,000, which was approved by the board on Dec. 19.
Since that point, however, the price has only gone up, with a first change order of $111,995.00 being approved on April 7 and a second change order of $29,447 being cleared on May 15.
“The bidders come out and they say, ‘OK, this is how much we’ll charge for this based on what we can see and what has been determined as the scope of work that needs to be done,’” Culpepper said. “If, in fact, there is something that they could not see at the time, then we still have to incur that cost.”
As for financing, the increases have already exhausted the balance remaining in contingency reserves and the rest of the money will come from the police budget and Measure GC funding. Measure GC is a bond passed in 2016 that authorized $325 million in general obligation bonds.
The scope of work added after the bidding process alarmed Vahé Peroomian, board vice president.
“When I first saw this huge increase and I saw the word ‘added scope’ in every single item, that kind of was a flashing red light for me,” Peroomian said.
“If these are unforeseen conditions, we have to do a better job of saying what they were. As fiscal agents of the bond that we passed, I don’t want to leave the impression ever that now that we have $352 million to spend. We’re all of sudden not being as careful, we’re not staying within the limits of the project,” he added.
The three change orders, along with higher construction costs, produced a bill of over $1 million, which has at least one board member on alert.
“I hope there is a lesson here that we need to do a better assessment,” board member Armine Hacopian said.
“Perhaps when we have such a large amount of transfer required for an increase, maybe we can separate unanticipated design versus what changes are being made because someone doesn’t like the plug on that wall and they need it on this wall. It’s difficult to continuously do transfer for increases, and I’m going to be paying attention to that,” she added.
