Changes to the original $70 million new county jail plans have included about $90,000 in structural, product and utility revisions, senior project manager Carl York says.
York gave the latest review of the project on West Main Street Road during Genesee County’s Human Services Committee meeting Tuesday.
“Some of these were items that just weren’t on the drawings. And so there’s a supplemental instruction that came out in the contract … so again, changes that are happening on the project. So far, we’ve had 46 instructions,” York said. “That’s about where I would expect it to be. None of these were huge changes. Some of them are just things that weren’t picked up on their original set of documents. And they have to be done. There’s been no issues so far from the Commission of Corrections.”
Having to add some precast, revising the type of flooring, making structural revisions to a pod and also to plumbing and gas provisions made for processing nearly $90,000 of change orders in December, York said.
All of the extras are not a concern, he said, as there is plenty of contingency funding for such needs. The first jail cell was delivered to the jail site this past week, and installed on Friday, Jan. 13. During the next two months or so, a total of about 100 cells will be installed at the property adjacent to County Building #2 and the Animal Shelter.
County Legislative Chairwoman Shelley Stein asked if those changes were above and beyond the $70 million project cost, and York said no. In fact, the cost is at “.4 percent, not even .5 percent of your entire project cost,” he said.
“You’re doing fabulous,” he said.
Stein wanted that fact to be emphasized, given the possibility that some legislators had thought recent change orders were piling up to mean a larger price tag for the jail, a big ticket item not readily accepted by everyone in the county as it is.
“Good, that should just be made really clear to all of our legislators here, because we certainly did hear some conversation after the last approval that … now it's 70 million plus,” Stein said.
York assured her that “It is not $70 million-plus.”
During the transport phase of the jail cell last week, County Manager Matt Landers said that he's pleased the project is so far coming in under budget.
The Department of Corrections has contacted The Pike Company, lead for the project, and a meeting is being set up for later this week to review jail plans, York said.
File Photo of Carl York, senior project manager, of The Pike Company, by Joanne Beck.
