A bit too much water and dirt made for muddy waters at the construction site of the new county jail.
At least temporarily.
In his report to the Public Service Committee Monday, Project Executive Mark Bollin reviewed how weather and ground materials worked their way into construction plans.
“Temporary lay down area has been established. Site earthwork cuts and fills is about 95 percent complete. We've done about two inches of stone right now, because if we don't put the two inches of stone down there right now (there can be drainage issues) when it rains," Bollin said at the Old Courthouse. "The contractor is going to be shut down for a day until it dries up … but thankfully this site dries up pretty quickly."
The weather — a recent good steady rain — shut down work for about a day and a half, he said. Underground utilities will be installed beginning this week, and contractor construction trailers are on site ready for utility hookups, he said.
Under the category of “change management,” he listed five cost items that were discovered during this initial phase, including an existing septic tank and leach field from when Genesee Community College was located there. Another item was the removal and replacement of “unsuitable soils,” he said.
County legislators wanted more details about those unsuitable soils.
“A layer of topsoil was discovered under a layer of the fill. The geotechnical engineer was brought to the site to review the existing site conditions and directed that the topsoil be removed from the field, or for allowance to remove or replace 500 cubic yards of unsuitable soil. This material was included in work package number one,” Bollin said. “The soil is not suitable to build the building; it doesn't have the bearing capacity to support the building.
"So I believe what happened here, at some point, somebody put fill over the top of topsoil and then another layer of topsoil somehow got on top of that. So when the contractor … cut the site down to grade, they dug down about eight inches or so and they found another layer of topsoil. We're calculating that to be about 100 yards of material.”
That scenario was built into one of the estimated scopes of work, he said, which is “the reason why we had that allowance to cover such things.”
The project cost is still currently $57,272,000, he said, however, three revisions to the project have been issued and are out for pricing with the contractors.
More fencing has been put up to redirect traffic and separate the project from the adjacent county’s Animal Shelter and Building 2. As far as safety goes, there have been no lost time accidents to date, he said, and safety plans have been submitted and approved by The Pike Company, except for one.
Despite the glitches with rain and topsoil, foundation work is scheduled to begin the week of June 27, which is two weeks early according to Pike’s Guideline Construction Schedule, Bollin said.
A bulk of the project is on track for a January 2024 completion, with a final completion of the new Genesee County Jail set for March 2024, he said.
2022 File Photo of construction for the new county jail on Route 5, Batavia, next to County Building 2 and Genesee County Animal Shelter. Photo by Howard Owens.
