The Pollard Middle School project still has many rivers to cross before a new school becomes a reality, but the School Building Committee answered one key question at its March 9 meeting when it selected Bond Building Construction to serve as the project’s construction manager at risk (CMAR).
Bond was chosen from five bidders for a $150,000 contract that effectively locks the firm in as the general contractor to perform the estimated $258.8 million in construction work in what is projected as a $336 million project when “soft costs” are added.
The project still needs to be recommended by the Select Board; receive a two-thirds approval at fall Town Meeting; and receive a funding vote from a majority of town voters for a debt exclusion override in November’s elections.
State law allows expensive and complex projects to eschew the traditional Design-Bid-Build process and proceed under the CMAR framework. CMAR is thought to give municipalities flexibility while complying with state procurement requirements.
The $150,000 contract brings Bond onto the job during the schematic design process to provide preconstruction services rather than bid on an already designed project. Bond’s work with the project design firm, HMFH Architects, is intended to provide better cost control, more schedule flexibility and a more informed schematic design.
The Pollard project advanced to the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Schematic Design Phase last month and the committee’s goal is to have a final design ready for submission to the MSBA at the end of June, a deadline it must meet to keep the project on a trajectory for a November funding vote.
Proponents of CMAR claim a project’s schematic design benefits from value engineering services, better informed cost estimating, procurement knowledge and other services from the contractor. Perhaps most importantly, the process will require Bond to establish a Guaranteed Maximum Price before construction begins.
The “at risk” contractor agrees to a maximum project cost prior to construction, although change orders and unforeseen site conditions can cause the price to change.
Projects must be of a certain scale and complexity to proceed under CMAR. The process is often employed when projects involve phased construction, working around an occupied school, a tight site with limited staging area and strict building code requirements — all of which are present in the Pollard scenario.
Relatively few companies possess the bonding capacity to serve as a CMAR and only five firms entered the town’s selection process. A pre-qualification committee reduced that to three finalists. Bond was chosen over Consigli Construction and a joint venture between Fontaine Brothers and Dimeo Construction after all three finalists were interviewed Feb. 26.
The seven-member selection committee included three members of the School Building Committee (Stuart Chandler, Lynne Deninger and George Kent); town building design and construction department staffers Hank Haff and Meryl Nistler; Tina Stanislaski of HMFH Architects, the project designer; and David Billings of LiRo-Hill, who is providing cost-estimating services for the project.
The selection of Bond reunites them with HMFH Architects. The two firms collaborated on the construction of the Chapman Middle School in Weymouth, which was completed in 2022 and has been often cited by town school officials as a model for what Needham hopes to accomplish at Pollard, both in its scale and approach.
Completed in 2022 at a total project cost of $164.2 million, the Chapman School is a 250,000+-square-foot Grade 6-8 middle school with capacity for 1,470 students that replaced a demolished building. It also includes an 850-seat performance center.
Committee members cited Bond’s “extensive experience with K-12 and MSBA projects” and other attributes as the deciding factors in selecting the firm from what the committee described as three especially strong and qualified bidders.
They also said the potential timing of the project could be fortuitous as Bond is scheduled to be finishing a school project in Wakefield around the time the Pollard project would be rolling out, assuming both are on schedule.
“With the geothermal and the parking logistics, we’ve got a pretty complex project,” said SBC member Stuart Chandler. “With the firms that we’ve talked to and in the selection of Bond, I feel much better going forward that, collectively, what we’re going to do for this town is moving in the right direction.”
Bond has never worked on a Needham school project, but it has completed significant projects for BID Hospital-Needham, including its Outpatient Clinical Center and Cancer Center & Surgical Pavilion.
Between now and the June submission deadline, SBC members indicated their priority will be to shave as much time and cost out of the current design as it can. The project is expected to have two construction phases, with the sixth-grade center being completed in a second phase.
Referring to the current $336 million project cost estimate, Haff said, “we are working as diligently as possible to bring that number down to be as close as possible to the prior vision (i.e., the school master plan estimate of $314 million).
“That will involve shortening the schedule, maximizing Phase One construction and looking at ways to save, both in terms of hard costs and soft costs.”
The next phase of the MSBA process is called Funding the Project. The town will negotiate a Guaranteed Maximum Price with Bond that will help establish the funding request that will go before both Town Meeting and the voters.
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