Government Waste
Lancaster Civil Lawsuit: Part 5: Trautman schematic design study reviewed
By Lee Chowaniec
Nov 20, 2005, 22:41

Sometime in late 2004, Town Board members and officials held three meetings with consultant Clough Harbour & Associates (CHA). Discussions were held on how to lower the build out costs envisioned with the Trautman Associates schematic design study for the 3949 Walden Avenue Building (Colecraft). CHA was hired shortly thereafter to evaluate the Trautman report and find ways of lowering the $11.3 million build out price tag.

At the first meeting, Supervisor Robert Giza asked CHA to review the high cost build out Trautman study and see where cuts could be made to lower the costs. At the other meetings CHA met with other town officials, the police and the courts to get a sense of what their present and future needs were and to gauge those against other general practices and similar facilities.

Sometime in early January of 2005, CHA was hired (at $15,000) to evaluate the findings of the Trautman report and determine the feasibility of providing an appropriate police and court facility for lower estimated construction cost than identified in the Trautman report - $11,358,000.

CHA did find a way to lower the build out costs of the 3949 Walden Avenue building (Colecraft), by reducing the square footage of building utilization by the police and courts. Reduction in space utilization was reported as happening several times throughout the process, using different designs and options.

It started out with CHA recommending using about 51,000 square feet of the 77,000 available building square feet. It was also noted in discovery that the square footage costs could go up, but the bottom line was that a reduction in costs could be had because of less build out.

Whereas Trautman was estimating costs to build out the entire 77,000 square footprint of the building, CHA was considering other build out sizes than the 51,000: 55,000, 48,633 and 42,631 square feet build outs.

When asked by the Plaintiff’s attorney whether he agreed that if you reduce the square footage, all of the other things being equal, that would reduce the cost, the CHA spokesperson replied that assumption was correct.

CHA received a letter from BGW Architects, the firm they retained to do certain subcontracting work design, stating that the Trautman schematic design was developed to fill the available space instead of designing it to the essential need and simply keep what is left for the future. BGW gave three examples: investigations, dispatch and fitness.

A February 16, 2005 CHA document contained a spreadsheet that revealed the cost for a new roof would be $540,000, whereas, the Trautman feasibility study estimated roof work at $170,000. Several other options were considered and to lower those costs, another option was to consider cutting out items like furniture, fixtures and equipment and/or purchasing less expensive items.

According to a revision correspondence sent to Clough Harbour & Associates by the Town Board member, Chairing for the Safety Committee on this endeavor, he suggested the build out of only 42,631 square feet of the 77,000 square foot building, at a cost of $5.2 million, $120.94 per square foot.

Making sense of the lower cost number

The build out cost would be far less than the Trautman build out estimate of $9.76 million for a 79,800 square foot building ($122.29 per square foot) and $8.2 million for a 77,000 square foot building ($106.11 per square foot).

As stated earlier, reduction in space utilization is the key criteria to lowering build out costs. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand cost savings will be realized by reducing build out, but it needs mentioning that the CHA evaluation study determined build out per square foot at $120.94, only $1.35 per square foot less than Trautman’ s 79,800 square foot building and $14.83 less per square foot cost than the 77,000 square foot schematic build out design.

If and when the Board presents this design to the public, the public should be informed the $5.2 million expenditure is only for the build out of a 42,631 square feet and more expenses are coming in the future for further expansion.

In 2003, when the building was first purchased, Supervisor Giza predicted that the total cost to purchase and renovate the 77,000 square foot 3949 Walden Avenue building would be somewhere between $4 to $5 million.

If this schematic design were to be utilized we are looking at spending $6.8 million to use 55 percent of the 77,000 square foot available building space.

NEXT: Part 6: Mr. Giza goes to Washington









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