West Tisbury town hall project to begin
At their regular weekly meeting yesterday, the West Tisbury selectmen voted to authorize executive secretary Jennifer Rand to enter into a contract with the J.K. Scanlon Company of East Falmouth to renovate the town hall. J.K. Scanlon was the low bidder and was recommended by the West Tisbury town hall renovation committee. Final negotiations with J. K. Scanlon will begin today.
Committee chairman Bea Phear told The Times late yesterday that the base bid was $3,349,000. Sub bids will bring the overall total cost of the contract to $3,415,800 she said. That is approximately half a million less than expected she said.
Ms. Phear said there were six bids, all but one well under the limit set by the voters at the annual town meeting last spring ($5,050,000, including temporary quarters and all other expenses). Three of the low bids were within two percent of one another, she said, giving the committee confidence that its estimate of the cost of the project was accurate. The architects are Keenan + Kenny Ltd. of East Falmouth.
The renovations committee decided that some of the site preparation and work on the temporary town hall quarters could be done more cheaply using local businesses, and some of that work has already been done. Before the weather got too hot this spring, Maciel Land and Tree took care of moving several trees as specified in the plans. The town hall annex (formerly the Music Street library), two office trailers, and two storage trailers will house the town offices during the renovation. David Merry and Sons have already dug the trenches which will be used to carry water, electricity, and phone service to the temporary trailers. The trailers themselves will be in place next to the annex by the end of this month, and town staff expect to move during the last week in September.
If all goes according to plan, Ms. Phear hopes that the first shovel will go in the ground early in October. Ms. Phear had words of praise for the wide ranging expertise of her committee, which includes Kent Healy, Kate Warner, Kathy Logue, Bruce MacNelly, Chuck Hodgkinson, and others. She added praise for the owner's project manager for the renovation, hired last spring, Michael Josefek of New Bedford, who has considerable construction experience and is himself an architect.
