On July 21, the board of the Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (PSSGID) — which also serves as the Pagosa Springs Town Council — received an update from staff on strategies for procuring a new wastewater treatment facility in downtown.
Projects Manager Kyle Rickert explained that town staff identified three procurement options to build the new treatment plant: construction manager at risk (CMAR), design-build and design-bid-build.
Rickert noted that, after meeting with industry experts on July 9, staff decided that the CMAR option would be best for the town.
A presentation on the matter explained that, under a CMAR, “the owner hires designers and builders under separate but overlapping contracts.”
It adds, “The owner contracts a construction manager during the design phase and oversees the project from buyout to close out.”
“It was decided that the CMAR option is the best fit due to it shifting much of the risk and responsibility involved in the construction project over to the construction manager/general contractor,” an agenda document states.
Rickert explained that staff also recommends that the town hire an owner’s representative for the entirety of the project, and prior to starting the procurement process for an engineering firm.
She added that the town is in conversations with other municipalities who have used an owner’s representative on facilities like this, “and we are hoping to go out to an RFQ [request for qualifications] to start the process.”
She added that once the town hires an owner’s representative, then it would “create a short list of design engineering firms of three to five firms that fit the type we are looking for and then go out to RFQ and further get those packages of proposals from the contractors.”
She continued, “So, this is … what we’ve come up with to slowly get this process moving while we simultaneously work on funding this project through the state revolving fund,” as well as other funding opportunities.
She noted that the new Public Works Director Nick Freelen has a lot of experience with CMAR projects from the contractor side of things.
Mayor Shari Pierce said, “I’m concerned. You guys say, ‘Yeah, this is what we should do, but then you also say that one of the negatives [of a CMAR] is that they [the contractor] might cut corners to save money.’”
She noted that, after what the town went through with the uphill wastewater conveyance system, “I’m really not happy about this, and so is this the decision that’s been made, or will there be more discussions?”
Rickert explained that this potential negative could be mitigated by “an open-book policy, where we regularly inspect their books to be able to see that there isn’t any cutting corners.”
Rickert added, “We would inspect them regularly to avoid that as a potential negative.”
“But a lot of the corner cutting [on the conveyance system] was in the ground, and in the work that was done. It wasn’t necessarily in the books,” Pierce said, asking, “So, how do we keep an eagle’s eye on that?”
Rickert explained that hiring the “owner’s rep” would mitigate these potential negatives, “and it would have to be someone close enough to be on-site for the majority of the project.”
Freelen added that “a lot of it comes to the selection of your contractor. When you’re bringing them in earlier, they have more ownership and are more involved, but you also need to be wise in who you choose, and go out there and follow those recommendations and references.”
He also said the owner’s rep would be responsible to “make sure that the contractor follows the engineering design, the specs and the drawings, and that would be the whole reason we are bringing them on board, to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Development Director James Dickhoff chimed in to say, “When we built the Public Works facility, we did use a CMAR process and that was a very successful project that we completed.”
Dickhoff explained that the town did not have an owner’s rep during the installation of the wastewater conveyance system.
He added that he recommends this CMAR process, giving the example of the “success” of the public works facility.
Rickert added that whoever the town chooses to be the owner’s rep would “have the expertise to complete the project.”
Town Manager David Harris said, “We’d be hiring an expert who will have our back,” referring to the owner’s rep.
Rickert said that Roaring Fork Engineering, who the town contracted with to evaluate its wastewater conveyance system, has names of some potential candidates for the town.
Board member Madeline Bergon said that it sounds like there’s “a lot of liability on the owner’s rep, because if they’re approving something and it turns out to be not the right decision or faulty, then there’s a path for us to seek resolution, potentially.”
Again, Freelen gave the advice, “If you find a contractor that has great reviews, make sure you go out and follow up on all those reviews.”
He also stressed that “you allow them to come in early,” because “there are numerous changes that they can make at that early stage that will reduce cost and increase quality.”
derek@pagosasun.com
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